Introduction to Portals

Web Portals: Gateways to InformationFebruary 2, 2001

What is a Portal Anyway?

“A Web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and on-line shopping malls. The first Web portals were online services, such as AOL, that provided access to the Web, but by now most of the traditional search engines have transformed themselves into Web portals to attract and keep a larger audience.” - ZDWEBOPEDIA.

Generally fall into two categories : Horizontal, also called HEPs (Horizontal Enterprize Portals) and mega-

portals. General sites that attempt to provide on a single web page all the services any user might need - Examples: MyYahoo, Excite

Vertical, also called VEPs (Vertical Enterprize Portals) or Vortals. Delivers organization-specific information in a user-centric way. Examples: MyLibrary (from NCSU),pets.com

Other terms in use include ERP (Enterprize Resource Portals), EIP (Enterprize Information Portal), Affinity Portal, Corporate Portal, Knowledge Management Portal, IT Portal, Niche Portal, Industry Portal, B2B Portal...

Common Components of Portal Space

Gateways to Web Access, i.e. well-defined “places to start”

A “hub” from which users can locate all the web content they commonly need at a general level (Horizontal) or organizational/interest level (Vertical)

Usually support some level of personalization and/or customization

A portal is “user-centric”, while a homepage is “owner-centric”

Horizontal Portals Up Close: MyYahoo

Horizontal Portals Up Close: MyYahoo

Horizontal Portals Up Close: MyYahoo (what it can’t do)

Vertical Portals Up Close: MyAssociation

How do we both ensure and leverage our credibility is one of the key issues facing academic libraries

Vertical Portals Up Close: MyAssociation

Vertical Portals Up Close: MyAssociation

Portal Technologies: at a web page near you

The Achilles’ Heel of Portals: does Yahoo’s disadvantage work to the library’s favour?

Portals & Libraries: the building blocks for a social machine?

Some web pundits envision a “social machine” based on web technologies to allow citizens to fully participate in society

Portals offer a network “desktop” that can follow users everywhere

Voting is already taking place on the Internet for various organization activities, e.g. electing board representatives

Libraries have a historical and important role to play in allowing the broadest spectrum of society to take advantage of all forms of communication

Tools for Building a Portal

CommercialActuate, Blackboard, Epicentric, Perspecta, Plumtree, Lotus Notes/Domino, eLPHIN

Library SystemiBistro (from SIRSI)

Open SourceJetSpeed (from Apache), MyLibrary, Zope

Key Question: Where will the content of the portal be created?

Library Examples: MyLibrary from NCSU

Library Examples: iBistro

Library Examples: iBistro

Library Examples: Open Online

Library Examples: Michigan Electronic Library

Library Examples: TeleEducation NB

Where to go for more information on Portals

http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/webportals/intro.html - PC Magazine’s Introduction to Portals

http://www.traffick.com/ - The “Guide to Portals” http://www.cren.net/know/techtalk/events/portals.html -

CREN TechTalk on Portalshttp://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/development/mylibrary/ -

MyLibrary sitehttp://www.zope.org/ - Search for “portal”, there is a

“Portal Toolkit” and information on applying it to specific organizations, including schools