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Buy, Build, or Open Source The Portal at UW-Madison. Jack Duwe Deputy CIO duwe@doit.wisc.edu September 24, 2003. MUM: My UW-Madison. Current status Technical environment How we got here Why we chose to purchase Pluses and minuses Plans for the future. MUM Current Status. Populations
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Buy, Build, or Open SourceThe Portal at UW-Madison Jack Duwe Deputy CIO duwe@doit.wisc.edu September 24, 2003
MUM: My UW-Madison • Current status • Technical environment • How we got here • Why we chose to purchase • Pluses and minuses • Plans for the future
MUM Current Status • Populations • 40,000 students • 20,000 staff • Roles: • Student • Faculty/Staff • Advisor • Instructor • A person can have more than one role
MUM Current Status (cont’d) • Applications • Peoplesoft Student Administration • WebCT and Desire2Learn • SunONE Mail • Oracle Calendar • Library applications (Endeavor/Voyager, et al) • Print distribution (Cypress) • Lots of small ones (e.g. Lost and Found)
MUM Current Status (cont’d) • Usage • 60,000 active users • 50,000 logins per day • 700+ peak concurrent users • 2.5 M web hits per day • 100% increase from last year
Technical Environment • Epicentric (now Vignette) framework • Java development environment • LDAP authentication • LDAP role-based authorization • To get to tabs and applications • Connections to back-end services • Via proxy, API, or “screen-scraping”
How we Got Here • 1999: Project initiated • Formed user advisory council • Joined JA-SIG uPortal discussion • Evaluated marketplace • 2000: Implemented MUM (pilot) • Bought Epicentric infrastructure • Demos all over campus • Advisory council debates and decisions! • Developed needed features • Implemented MUM for a pilot student group
How we Got Here (cont’d) • 2001: Full production • 40,000 students • Many standard functions • 2002: Expanded production • 20,000 Faculty and staff • Advisor role • Web registration • Replaced touchtone registration • 2003: Instructor role
Why we chose to purchase • We could demonstrate immediately • No one knew what a portal could do! • A portal is not primarily a computer issue • It’s a people issue! • We could implement quickly • The software existed!
Pluses • We got up quickly • We have a system that runs • There are support engineers we can call • Epicentric’s only business was the portal • We can modify the source • New features and versions
Minuses • There is no such thing as BUYING a portal! • You buy AND develop! • Lack of higher ed perspective • Epicentric bought out by Vignette • Product still the same (that’s good) • Upgrade prices are up • An uncertain future
Plans for the Future • New roles • Departments • new populations • Applicants for admission • new modules • E-grading
Plans for the Future (cont’d) • Evaluating framework options: • Upgrade to current Epicentric version • PeopleSoft portal • uPortal • Decision likely this winter.
Buy, Build, or Open SourceThe Portal at UW-Madison Jack Duwe Deputy CIO duwe@doit.wisc.edu September 24, 2003