Assessment of Portal Options Presented to: Technology Committee UMS Board of Trustees May 18, 2010

The CPS Assessment Team Matt Combs Tom Danford Ed Cornelius Brian Ellis 2

Topics for this Presentation Purpose of the Project Benefits of a Portal Data we Collected What UMS Constituents Want in a Portal Different Types of Portals we Considered The Two we Recommend and Why 3

What We Were Asked To DO 1.Research various portal options in the market. 2.Recommend one or more options that will meet the needs of the University of Maine System institutions. 4

What is a Portal? Most would agree that an enterprise portal creates a common gateway to the data and services that the people throughout a school or system need to effectively share information, deliver constituent services more efficiently and work together on projects. 5

What is a Portal? NOTE: V2 The enterprise portal is an integration platform that securely provides a central point for accessing, personalizing and configuring information and applications that are appropriate to their role(s) in the university. 6

Benefits of a Portal Saves time Increases student engagement Facilitates anytime, anywhere learning Helps make better decisions Lets faculty focus on research and instruction Streamlines administrative tasks Connects with your community 7

Data Collection Methods The Information We Collected to Make a Recommendation 8

Data Collection Methods 1.Focus group sessions 2.Online Survey 3.Input from portal vendors 9

Focus Group Participation 9 Focus Group Sessions with participants from all institutions 14 Faculty members 18 Students 32 Administrative Staff 15 Technical Staff 6 SMEs from UMS 10

Online Survey Participation Stakeholder Group No. of Participants Students614 Faculty291 Administrative Staff239 Technical Staff47 TOTAL

Vendor Participation 35 organizations were identified, contacted, and asked to provide information A statement of work and a response spreadsheet were circulated 15 vendors (43 percent) willingly returned information on costs, timeline, functionality, and other factors 12

Results: Part 1 What Constituents Wanted in a Portal

Strongest Needs 1.Portal must make navigating from one resource to the other more efficient and more user friendly 2.Portal must allow for campus specific branding and personalization of content and capabilities 3.Portal must allow for distributed administration even when centrally hosted 4.Portal should allow for users with multiple campus relationships and multiple roles 14

5.Portal needs to include more collaborative tools or features to facilitate communication between student, students and advisors, instructors and student, and peer to peer 6.Portal must integrate with critical administrative systems to trigger alerts and notifications to relevant users 7.Portal should be able to allow for distributed contribution model 15

Results: Part 2 Portal Options That We Investigated

Five Categories of Portals 1.Portal Development Partner (Commercial) 2.Portal Development Partner (Open Source) 3.Turnkey COTS Portal 4.Turnkey COTS SaaS 5.Turnkey Non-Profit Consortium 17

Factors That we Assessed for each Portal Option 1.Benefits 2.Drawbacks 3.Acquisition costs 4.Maintenance & upgrade costs 5.Implementation costs 6.Timeframe 7.Technical skills needed 8.Level of risk 9.Hardware costs 10.Staffing costs 11.TCO 12.ROI factors 18

Selected Findings Each portal category had its strengths and weaknesses All portal options will satisfy most if not all the needs and requirements of UMS stakeholders Projected over 5 years, the lowest TCO estimates were $3M to $4.4M The highest TCO estimates were in a range of $13.3M to $13.7M 19

Options Going Forward The Two Portal Options We Recommend and Why

Two Solutions that will Best Benefit the UMS Institutions Turnkey COTS (PeopleSoft) Turnkey Non-Profit Consortium (Liferay) These two portal options had several advantages for UMS institutions Lowest TCO over five years in the range of $3.5M - $4M vs. the $5M - $13M range of the other portal option categories 21

Turnkey COTS (PeopleSoft) PeopleSoft portal is already integrated with the MaineStreet applications Large installed base of clients Software code is maintained and updated by the vendor PeopleSoft portal can handle all user needs that we identified Has the lowest TCO and the potential for the highest ROI 22

Turnkey Non-Profit Consortium (Liferay) Liferay is the leading open source enterprise portal CampusEAI has support services and a private consortium of like minded schools Liferay integrates with all key higher education administrative systems Can deliver most if not all user needs Comparatively low TCO 23

The Choice for UMS UMS essentially must make a choice between relying on a well regarded commercial product (PeopleSoft) and a well regarded “open source” product (Liferay). Both paths have pros and cons and the good news is that UMS has experience with each. Total Cost of Ownership over time is fairly similar and risk factors equal out. 24

Assessment of Portal Options Presented to: Technology Committee UMS Board of Trustees May 18, 2010