myVCU Portal -- Opening New Doors and Making Life Easier Jim Yucha Director, Web Services Virginia Commonwealth University [email protected]

Session Objectives • Background – VCU – myVCU Portal

• Demo • 5 Portal Challenges • Questions

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About VCU • • • •

Richmond, Virginia 30,381 Students Qatar (Arts) Northern Virginia (Medicine, Social Work)

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Portal Web site that provides personalized capabilities to its visitors and is a pathway to other content and services from a variety of sources. sources

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Types of Portals • Vertical Portal – Library – Learning Management System – Administrative System

• Horizontal (or Enterprise) Portal – Vertical V ti l P Portals t l – Email, RSS Feeds, more www.ts.vcu.edu

Audience How many 1. have an enterprise portal? 2. are planning/implementing a portal? 3. have no definitive plans, just looking?

Is or will your portal be 1. Open Source 1 2. Commercial 3. Home Grown www.ts.vcu.edu

Prediction 80% of universities with a 1,000 or more students t d t would ld h have an enterprise portal by the year 2006. Gartner (~2000) ( )

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CSMS Attendees Students 1,000 ,

% w/ Enterprise Portal 40%

5,000

48%

10,000

48%

, 20,000

63%

30,000

67% www.ts.vcu.edu

Get Started: At VCU Started investigating Portals around 1999 I t ll d U Installed Uportal t l iin 2002 th then b budget d t cuts t Applied for Portal Grant (Summer 2003) Awarded Oracle-CampusEAI Portal Grant ((Sep p 2003)) www.ts.vcu.edu

Implementation Milestones • • • • • • •

Sep 2003 – Awarded Grant Feb 2004 – Hardware / Software Installed M 2004 – Hired Mar Hi d JJava P Programmer Mar 2004 – Began portlet development Apr 2004 – Demonstrate prototype Jun 2004 – Pilot groups Nov 2004 – Portal live www.ts.vcu.edu

VCU Portal Development Team • Java Developers (2) • Database Administrator ((.33) 33) • Web W b Design D i

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System

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Demonstration

https://my.vcu.edu

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Why a Portal?

• Many online service points [hard to find] Sign on • No Single Sign-on • 19 different authentication schemes

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Why not a Portal? • Cost – Systems y – Technical Support (Design/Maintain)

• Usability • Performance • URLs / Bookmarks

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Challenge 1 Which Portal?

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Which VCU Portal • Oracle • Banner (Luminis) • Blackboard Bl kb d • Library

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Portal Requirements • VCU would support one enterprise portal • Independent of major systems – Email E il – Banner – Blackboard – Library

Conclusion: Nothing better, revisit 3 years www.ts.vcu.edu

Portal Choices Home Grown – My UB – My UCLA – myUW

Open Source – Uportal – Liferay – JBoss

• On Line – Microsoft Live – My Google – My Yahoo

Commerical – Luminus – Oracle – Sharepoint – Vignette

• Widgets/Gadgets – Desktop – Web Service

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Audience • How many of you have moved from one space to another? And why?

• At any point in the future would you consider using an ‘On Line’ portal?

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Challenge 2

How much personalization?

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Automatic Personalization • VCU eID for authentication • LDAP fifields ld determine d t i role l att VCU • Based on role get specific tabs, portlets portlet content and p

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Tab Layout • Tabs – – – – – –

myVCU Faculty Life, Staff Life, Student Life Academics [Faculty, Student] Library eServices New Student [ABNE]

• Future Tabs? – College / School

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Portal Personalization • Add Add, move move, and delete portlets through the portal vendor interface. • Usually the weakness of a portal.

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Portlet Personalization Personalize the content of portlet through a University designed interface. Example: Single Sign On Portlet • Combine 19 portlets into 1 • Personalization is now done by clicking checkboxes instead of adding, moving and/or deleting portlets www.ts.vcu.edu

Personalization Statistics • Portal Customization – 5% of users have added a portlet – #p portlets added: Avg:3 g

• Portlet Customization: Single Sign On – 14% of users have added Facebook – Facebook: 48% of SSO customizations Note: Portal reset with Jan ’07 upgrade: Kept Personalization, Lost Layout

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Portlet Evolution Three stages of a portlet • Stage St 1: 1 Link Li k • Stage 2: Single Sign-on • Stage 3: Dashboard with Functionality www.ts.vcu.edu

Portlet Implementation Issues Link Æ SSO Æ Content • A Application li ti owner d doesn’t’t see th the b benefit fit • Do not want to rewrite system functionality. • Additional functionality y mayy not be worth the development cost or portal real estate.

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Stage 3 Example

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Stage 3 Example

5 days before it is due [Also get Alert]

After renewal {started by clicking “Access My ..” Link}

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VCU Personalization Strategy • Maximize automatic personalization • Maximize portlet personalization • Mi Minimize i i th the need d ffor portal t l personalization Has anyone done usability test? www.ts.vcu.edu

Challenge 3

Who is your customer?

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Target Audience • • • • •

Current Students Faculty & Staff ABNE Admitted ABNEAd itt d but b t nott enrolled ll d Alumni Applicants

• Parents, Trustees, Friends of … www.ts.vcu.edu

Challenge 4

Now that you have built a great portal how do you get people to take ta e ad advantage a tage o of tthe eg great eat too tool?

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Get Folks Involved • • • • • • •

Students Design Sessions w/Pizza SGA presentations B Brown B Bag L Lunches h ((noontime ti seminars) i ) Faculty Retreats (Dean’s invitation) Technology Service Days New Student Orientation Goodies www.ts.vcu.edu

Where’s Where s the Beef • Admin System – Converting to Banner • Email – Consolidating to Notes • Blackboard Bl kb d • Library

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How do you sell your product?

Location

Location

Location

Curb Appeal www.ts.vcu.edu

Location & Curb Appeal

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Total Logins per Month 350000 300000 250000 Logins

2004 200000

2005 2006

150000

2007

100000 50000 0 Jan

Feb Mar

Apr May Jun

Jul

Aug Sep Oct

Nov Dec

M onth (Be ginning Nov 2004)

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Challenge 5 What is the relationship between the portal t l and d your U University i it web b site? it ?

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Web-Portal Web Portal Relationship • Separate • Partially integrated • Fully F ll iintegrated t t d • What are you doing? • Why or why not?

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Final Analysis In the final analysis analysis, portal deployment is much like anything else – one can have it fast have it good fast, good, or have it cheap cheap. The catch is that only two of the three are possible. possible Steven Daigle & Patricia Cuocco California State University

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Thank You!

Questions?

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