Computer comunication B Intranet

Intranet: introduction Intranet:  Closed (reserved) portion of the internet  Makes use of the normal internet infrastructure  Very useful for communication in the distance

Intranet: Functionality Functionality  It is a medium for facilities and exchange of information  Information and data can be sent to all employees at the same time  Knowledge and data can be shared  Works top-down (management→employee) and in the reversed order as well  Can be adapted according to the management policy of a company or institution  At the same time intranet is a platform for ICT facilities (text manipulation, databases, etc)

Intranet: development 1 Intranet is at the interface (cutting edge) between communication and ICT-departments Employees of the communication department have to closely collaborate with the employees of the ICT department  Intranet began as a job for the ICT department  But it concerns communication as well  This is probably one of the reasons for the ‘historical animosity’ between these two departments In order to be convinced collaborators with the ICT department, communication employees have to know the characteristics and the possibilities offered from the intranet They do not have to know how specific things are implemented

Intranet: development 2 The content can be directly placed in the intranet with the support of specific software  Content Management System  XML-editors like Xopus used by the RUG XML (Extensible Markup Language)  Extensible: the users can define their own language  The purpose is to facilitate the sharing of structured data across different environments, especially for internet

Intranet: development 3 The planning: what do we want to achieve with an intranet?  Information maintenance, sharing of knowledge/information, discussion  Ho can the intranet be adapted to the management policy of a company or organization?  What can be replaced? How does this shift the role of other media (personal pages, newsletters, etc…)?

Intranet: development 4 What are the needs of the intended users?  Intranet is a pull-medium (Time advantage: employees can link or look for the information they need at a certain point in time)  We can share interviews/surveys (sometimes thesis projects too) With a mix of open and closed questions it has to be decided what it is really necessary The choice of the interviewed people is important  But do users always know what is good for them?  The contribution of communication experts is required Transformation of wishes and needs into concrete structures

Intranet: management Clear demarcation of responsibilities Clear guidelines for content-distributors Protection of topical interests (always provide contributions with the correct date) Control/protection of quality  Control if the input (contribution) of the content distributors matches with the policy of the company or foundation  If necessary cut down of rewrite  Follow the style of the company It is necessary to organize training sessions or courses for intranet users Put appealing parts in the web (phone list, etc)

Intranet: the RUG page Intranets are protected subparts of the internet, therefore there is usually no access to it external data The goal is to be able to inform about accessible themes and data Usually even as a stage or thesis supervisor the access is denied An easy example is the RUG-page  It is an intranet and extranet page at the same time  That is why the page is more accessible than the usual intranets  There are not only employees and external people. Students form an intermediate group.  nevertheless the RuG-site has clear characteristics

Intranet RUG: management There is a whole group of web-editors The majority are responsible only for a little part of the RUG-site, and in that case they can change the page There are guidelines for the structure and the creation of the pages The communication department of the RUG is responsible for the top most pages  Only they are allowed to change these pages The elaboration happens usually with Xopus (to edit the source codes it is only partially possible) This avoids bib mistakes in the code

Intranet Rug: protection 1 The protection of the internal parts of the intranet (data on employees, library) has to be done in several places.  Library: who has the right to access the electronic journal subscriptions?  Internal documents: appointment policy, evaluations of employees,  Specifications about salaries Protection prevents the loss of data or the crash of some systems (for example ProgressWWW) The safety of authors’ rights is protected as well In general the protection of the intranet within a university is considered not to be a big problem

Intranet Rug: protection 2 Protection prevents the abuse of ICT-facilities  Hacking  Identity theft: discover and use information about a person, and use this persons’ identity for fraud purposes  Phishing: acquire sensitive information, like passwords, usernames etc, to make illegal acts (cracking a bank for example)  Spamming: a computer is created as a vehicle to send spam  Actual problem: There are spam s with RUG addresses!!

Intranet Rug: building 1 The way the RUG intranet is build is not always clear  Some parts are not linked from the main portal, as for example the webplatforms or the new employees’ pages Example 1: try to find the English translation on new employees Example 2: catalogue for education  Other signs are clear and help for the navigation: colors for each faculty etc.  “safety exit” from the main portal. In each (almost every) page there is a link to the main page.  But… you have to discover yourself that this sign has this special function

Intranet Rug: building 2 There are different ways to structure the sub pages  Per content (faculties, research groups)  More formal (education in contrast to research, BA- courses against MA-courses)  This requires complex forms of structuring (net- structures instead of tree-structures)  Problem: the internal structures are unknown even for colleagues of other departments Very important then: SEARCH function  Looks for strings This can give to many results Sometimes the domain in which we look for things is restricted per se’

Intranet Rug: the logo 1 For every company (including universities) is important to have a clear and recognizable logo  Demonstrates the identity of the company or of the organization (think about logos of other companies)  Makes the intranet predictable en therefore attractive (for example the use of the same style for the general page and for the single faculty’s pages)  For web-editors there is a large guide to follow en/redactieformule  The same logo and style connects the intra and extra parts of the RUG pages

Intranet Rug: the logo 2 The control of the logo (style) is difficult because there are many editors (with different levels of rights) Solution  Pages can be subdivided in ‘frames’ where there are the separate elements of the style, and a ‘central part’  The make up of the frame is then not so influential given that for the majority of the editors only the central part is accessible The new style of the university was recently updated

Intranet Rug: employees Information about working terms (payments, leave) services (phonebook, phone, personal webspace), health The employees should be attracted to use the intranet of the university In this case the Human Resources department (HR) plays an important role. Important and interesting information should be made accessible Second goal: to prevent the largest possible number of enquiries from important information before making them available Problem: how many people are informed that certain information is available in a certain location? The link “information for employees” is not so unambiguous

Intranet Rug: personal pages Every employee has now somewhere a personal page There is no standardized construction Renders the research and exchange of information about employees of the university difficult But these sorts of information is an important part of the intranet Now there are new pages for employees with a standardised interface Pilot phase  Contacts  Function and group  Optional extra pages about research  Example

More literature R. Brandsma & P.Spijker, 2003: Intranet als praktisch communicatiemiddel. Alphen a/d Rijn: Kluwer. W. Hendrikx, 2004: Handboek intranet. Een praktische gids voor overheid, non-profit en bedrijfs­leven. Den Haag: Sdu uitgevers. H. Koeleman e.a., 2002: Intranet voor de communicatieprofes­sional. Een handleiding voor de opzet en ver­be­tering van intranet in organisaties. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer. Internet: In Dutch: In English SpecLib.html SpecLib.html