Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Introduction What Does a Portal Look Like?

“Portal 101” Seminar

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Yahoo Results: Portal York Region

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Yahoo Results: Portal Toronto

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Yahoo Results: GIS Portal

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

So When is a Portal not a Portal?

• Everyone claims to have a portal

• The value of the term is therefore diluted

• Let’s identify what is important about a Portal, and use the right term for other things Website Gateway Portal

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Website - Defining Characteristics

• Direct source of information• Not dynamically generated content• Principally text in HTML with associated images, and

other media files• Uses hyperlinks to navigate within, and sometimes out of

the website• Principal focus is itself, rather than referencing other

resources• Provider of syndicated content (ideally)

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Website – York Region

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Gateway - Defining Characteristics

• Primarily a collection of set hyperlinks to online resources of perceived value to the end-user

• Coupled with descriptions of the referenced resources• The majority of the resources belong to others• Often the collection is for a single topic or theme• Often aided by a search engine that auto-imposes a filter

on that topic• Can remote search other online catalogs (ideally)

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Gateway – Ontario Seniors’ Info

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Portal - Defining Characteristics

• Account-based (Security) capable of supporting “single sign-on”

• Personalizable

• Customizable

• Aggregates and integrates User of syndicated content

• Exposes transactional services

• Search, structured and unstructured

• Notification – push approach

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Hierarchy of Portal Types

Portal

Public Web

EnterpriseCorporate

Marketspace

B2B B2CMegaPortals

YahooExciteInfoSeeketc

VerticalPortals

Geospatial One StopConservation GeoPortal

derived from: Ovum's taxonomy of portals

PartnerPortals

Intranet Internet Complete

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Corporate Internet Portal

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Personalization: User Registration

From the Portal account registration process… You entered your date of birth -

• you are now pre-set with some resource links related to seniors

You flagged that you’re visually impaired - • you are pre-configured with the accessible version

You provided the address of your place of work - • We encourage you to take the bus to work - here is the

transit routes and nearest bus stop to your home

You registered that you wish to be notified by email of upcoming events –

• the email will sent here ________ for each new event

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Customization

Now that I am logged in…and know what I can do… I wish to change my page layout and add a second

page

I wish to have Serif font I wish to have community safety notices on my home

page I wish to be email notified in a weekly summary of

upcoming events I wish to add a map of my local waste disposal sites

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Aggregation & Integration

Using the Portal tools available….• I want to have subscribed information relating to Family

prominently available - a “channel” so to speak

• I just made a custom map using various data sources and will save it for use later

• I just configured an advanced search tapping into multiple catalogs and will save it to re-apply later

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Transactional Servicesand Single Sign-On

Now that I’m logged in… I wish to see what Library books I have signed out

• and will schedule a renewal

I wish to see my municipal tax account balance• and update my account for pre-authorized payment

I wish to see the status of my public service inquiries and complaints

• and submit a new one about the Transit website being down!

I wish to see what swim programs my kids have taken • and will then register for the upcoming relevant program

presented

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Illustrative Difference

Websites Gateway

Corporate Internet Portal

subscribeinternaltransactionalsystem

publicinformation bounce

Enriched Communities through Coordinated Geospatial Infrastructure

Summary

• Portal means more than Gateway

• Required: a good understanding of the qualitative benefits from an end-users perspective, and quantitative benefits from an internal agility perspective

• “Install it and they will come” without a plan is not advised

• Is it effective to have a multitude of ways in? – for we will always have Google, IE Favourites, and Notepad