New web portal promises to bring University information resources, services together in a coherent way, make them more accessible
BY RACHELLE COOPER
With the 2003 opening of Rozanski Hall and the recent opening of Phase 1 of the science complex, anyone walking on campus can clearly see that U of G is revitalizing its physical infrastructure. What people can't see, however, is that Guelph is also revitalizing its virtual infrastructure.
The improvements that have been made to the University's virtual environment over the past few years will become apparent in less than a year with the launch of the U of G Enterprise Web Portal.
“The portal is going to bring together in a coherent way the very rich information resources and information services that the University has,” says chief information officer Michael Ridley. “Right now, those services and resources are there, but they're scattered about in that digital environment. The portal is this coherence engine that will bring things together and make them more accessible, easy to use and personally relevant.”
The portal will allow members of the U of G community to find out when their library books are due, how many new e-mail messages are in their inbox and what meetings they have that day just by logging in once to the University website.
“It's basically a personalized view of the information and services available online from U of G,” says University website manager Stuart Robertson. “Rather than having to log in separately to WebMail, WebCT, Open Learning or any online service, you will log in once and it will provide you with links to all of U of G's services.”
Robertson and Ridley have been working to set up the University portal for several years with a portal management team that also includes Bo Wandschneider of Academic Services, Computing and Communications Services (CCS); Peter McCaskell, CCS portal systems manager; Blair Capes, assistant director, Housing Services and Family Housing; Brian Pettigrew, registrar and director of strategic enrolment management; Andrew Phoenix, IT peer, Learning Commons; Alana Cordick, CCS co-op student; and Prof. Susan Brown, School of English and Theatre Studies.
The team is now seeking advice from faculty, staff and students to ensure the University community's needs will be met by the portal.
A company called Unicon has been hired to install uPortal — an open-source web portal developed by a consortium of universities — and to provide technical support beginning next month. Services will be added to the portal beginning in September 2005.
More than 80 universities around the world currently use the uPortal service, including Yale, Princeton, Duke, the University of Hong Kong, the University of British Columbia and Dalhousie.
“The reason portals are starting to become more prominent on university campuses is that we've got a very complex information environment and users need to engage all of that, whether it's courses online or registration or something from the library,” says Ridley.
“Right now, you've got to know which site to go to and which part of the site a particular piece of information is located on. Think about the portal as exactly the opposite. It pushes information to you that's relevant to you, rather than you having to go find it.”
The portal will provide all U of G members with personal web functions and campus-wide web functions — including an address book, calendar, bookmarks, WebMail and classified ads — that will help users be more organized and collaborate more effectively online, says Robertson. The portal will allow a person's bookmarks, address book, calendar and WebMail to be accessible from any computer. Event and to-do technology will work with users' personal calendars to give a broad look at the day's events.
There will also be threaded-discussion forums to provide a place for informal online discussions, as well as technology for real-time group chats.
“We see this as an evolutionary project,” says Ridley. “What we'll be able to deliver when we roll out next year will be the starting place, but we expect that quickly and over time we'll layer on and add resources.”
Campus-wide functions of uPortal will help U of G create, maintain and distribute information and services to targeted user groups, says Robertson. The portal will help University departments work in a common direction and give them access privileges to publish announcements on a campus-wide or group basis.
“Once someone logs on to the University website, the portal will deliver personal information to that person based on their role in the University,” says Robertson. “For a student who plays intramural sports, the intramural schedules could be front and centre, whereas someone else may want student government information on his or her main page.”
The portal will supplement the University's existing website. People who aren't part of the University community will still have access to the current website.
For more information, to offer suggestions about portal content or to see examples of portals from other universities, visit http://portal.uoguelph.ca.
