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What is a 'portal'?

Portal-to-portal : joining up content to decrease the time spent clicking as distinguished from the time spent working Michael Fraser Research Technologies Service University of Oxford. What is a 'portal'?. Provides a framework for Retrieving, aggregating (and integrating) information

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What is a 'portal'?

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  1. Portal-to-portal : joining up content to decrease the time spent clicking as distinguished from the time spent working Michael FraserResearch Technologies Service University of Oxford

  2. What is a 'portal'? • Provides a framework for • Retrieving, aggregating (and integrating) information • From distributed remote services • Presenting information according to user preferences “Building portals is not about creating new content. It is less about developing functionality than it is about building a coherent presentation of existing content and applications tailored to specific users.”

  3. Essentials of a portal • Provides an integrated view (“pocket guide”) to the information resources of an institution or community • For students, teachers, researchers, academic-support, alumni… • From information exposed by universities and their parts, academic services, publishers, professional bodies...

  4. And what a portal is not • Not • Content creation/management system • Replacement for existing processes • A portal is only as good as its content • The content is only as good as the processes to create/retrieve/manage it • Developing a portal may result in changing processes but it is not an aim

  5. Evolution of Portal Types Web pagePortal Gateway Portal Cross-searching Portal Library Portal InstitutionalPortal Portal-to-PortalPortal ?

  6. Web Page Portal

  7. Gateway Portal

  8. Gateway-to-Digital Library Portal

  9. Cross-searching Portal

  10. Library Portal

  11. Institutional Portal

  12. Summary of functionality • Access management • News, alerting and updating • Cross-searching • Linking • Personalisation

  13. Single Web Access Point • Common functionality for disparate resources • Complexities of user/resource access management • Manage Local and Remote Users • Access Local and Remote Resources Access Management

  14. Manage the Agreements Previously Established • Institutions & Resource Providers • Ensure Authentication of Users • Grant Authorisation to Protected Resources Access Management System

  15. JISC-funded 2 year project led by UK Resource Discovery Network (Biome, Eevl, Humbul, Sosig and Psigate) with UKOLN (Bath) and ILRT (Bristol) • Aims to develop portal functionality to enable RDN hubs to present a subject-based view of national academic collections etc. • Phase one ended August 2003 • Phase two until Sept 2004 Subject Portals Project

  16. Rationale • Multiple distributed digital resources • Desire for greater simplicity • PORTAL Project (Hull) survey:“Search across your favourite library resources or websites: Scoring a total of 217 points, the ability to search across your favourite resources was the highest rated feature for survey participants taken as a whole.” (p.16) • Convergence of standards and portal types

  17. Subject Portals Architecture

  18. Subject Portals Project Demonstrator

  19. The cross-search screen

  20. The search results screen

  21. Saved records and full record view

  22. Searchable newsfeeds

  23. Choosing portlets and customising the layout

  24. Initial user feedback “Excellent research facility once one has decoded the ways into it. The screen is too cluttered for a computer-illiterate person (like me!) – too much information makes the actual process of searching too complex, although the results are excellent.” “Gives access to a range of resources and spares students the time of searching a range of different portals. Saving of resources and printing very easy and clear.” “I would use it if it was much clearer and obvious where I could find resources relating to my research. Presently I would search under HUMBUL because this is the only resource I know. More has to be done to familiarise students with the other collections so they know where these would be of some use.” “I really wasn’t sure what portal meant before I came but now I think I understand it better. A doorway to other resources? It certainly meets that.”

  25. Avoid locking content into black boxes Standards for interoperability Framework JSR 168 Portlet Specification Web Services for remote portlets (WSRP) Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) XML/XSLT Functionality • Access management • Pluggable authentication module • LDAP (EduPerson) • Alerting • RSS newsfeeds • Cross-searching • Dublin Core Metadata • Z39.50 (Bath Profile) • Open Archives Initiative • Linking • OpenURL

  26. Observations • More user consultation! • Issues with searching disparate resources • Compare and contrast • Google – OPAC – texts – images – Humbul ... • Standards only work if... • Open Source licensing • Challenge of user interfaces • clarity; subject-based; personal • user has a role in a group • Content negotiation and management

  27. The joined-up future? The JISC Information Environment Technical Architecture Diagram courtesy of Andy Powell, 2003

  28. Michael FraserResearch Technologies ServiceUniversity of Oxfordhttp://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/rts/ Email: mike.fraser@oucs.ox.ac.uk

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