Portals, Libraries, and Avoiding the Trash Bin

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Portals, Libraries, and Avoiding the Trash Bin

• Computers in Libraries 2005
• Missy Harvey
• Carnegie Mellon University
• harvey_at_andrew.cmu.edu
• March 2005

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Portal Development atCarnegie Mellon University

• Started Efforts in Fall 2001
• Released Portal Fall 2003
• Libraries Have Been a Major Part
• Enabling Libraries to Become a More Prominent and
  Thriving Resource
• Delivering Content Around the World
• Mistakes and Lessons Learned
• Libraries Involvement Along the Way

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What is a Portal?

• A portal is
• a dynamic
• customizable Web service
• that offers content and
• applications to
• users based on their relationship with an
  institution
• A portal provides
• consistent navigation
• as well as a consistent interface

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Relationships

• Portal Content Targets
• Groups of Users (Relationship)
• Users May Be
• Department Heads
• Staff in History
• Graduate Students in Physics
• Student Members of a Student Organization

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Portlets

• Portal Content is Delivered in Portlets /
  Channels
• Portlets Can Be
• E-mail
• Calendars
• Headlines
• Surveys or Forms
• RSS or XML Feeds
• Results of JDBC Queries
• Links to Existing Web Pages

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Portal vs. Web Site

• Web Site Information is Static
• Every User Sees the Same Thing
• Portal Information is Dynamic
• Determined by Who They Are
• What Groups They Belong To

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Carnegie Mellon Composition

• Core population is about 13,470 people
• 5389 Undergraduates
• 4274 Graduate Students
• 1300 Faculty
• 2500 Full-Time Staff
• 70,000 Alumni
• Prospective Students
• Research Partners

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Distance Education

• 16 Distance Education Programs
• Remote Campuses
• Remote Sites with In-Person and Online Courses
• Collaborative Programs with Other Institutions
• Executive Education Programs

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Impact on University Libraries

• Adequate and Timely Services
• Delivering Books to Faculty/Students in Remote
  Places
• Expanding our Interlibrary Loan Procedures
• Providing Database Services to Users Using a VPN
  or a Unique IP Address

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Technical Issues

• Authentication / Single Sign-On
• WebISO / Pubcookie
• Kerberos 5
• Shibboleth
• Scalability
• Unique E-Mail System
• Use Existing Mail Programs
• Mirrored Bboards
• Event Calendar
• Content Management System (CMS)

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Event Calendar
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Are Portals Really Becoming Necessary?

• On Our Existing Campus Web Site We Found
• Information was Hard to Find
• People Used Bookmarks
• Potential Security Problems Abounded
• Lots of Redundant Web Work Underway Across Campus
• Uncoordinated Institutional Image

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Green, K. C. 2004 National Survey of Information
Technology in U.S. Higher Education.
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Why Should Libraries Care?

• Disruptive Changes Being Driven By
• Cellphones
• Entertainment Devices
• Consumers of Content Whose Interests and Tastes
  are Supported by the Technology
• Pay Attention to How Content Is
• Created
• Found, and
• Used by the Self-Sufficient but also Demanding
  and Discerning Information Consumer and Producer

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Why Should Libraries Care?

• Coordinated Management of Digital Assets of
  Institutions
• Data Sets
• e-Prints
• Theses and Dissertations
• Videos of lectures
• More.
• Content Behaviors Have Changed
• Potential to Increase Campus Presence

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Resulting Vision

• A Unified Digital Dashboard of Campus Services
• Content Personalized To and Customized By Users
• An Information Management Platform for the Web
• An Infrastructure for University Information
  Management in General

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Challenges Faced / Mistakes Made

• Stakeholders
• Problems getting all stakeholders on campus to
  become involved with the project from the start
• Important to involve as many as possible in
  portal planning and implementation
• Need to encourage the need to adhere to
  principles and tools that allow for all units to
  leverage unifying technologies

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Challenges Faced / Mistakes Made

• Interviewed Remote Campuses/Sites
• Should have interviewed more remote campuses and
  sites to learn what worked and did not work for
  them
• We brought them in later rather than earlier

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Challenges Faced / Mistakes Made

• Timing
• Timing is can be crucial to success
• One of our colleges on campus had already
  developed a portal to be used by their own people

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Challenges Faced / Mistakes Made

• Publishing Challenges
• At the moment, most publishing of portlets has to
  be handled by Computing Services
• This made sense initially but is causing other
  campus projects to be delayed
• This problem is being addressed as we speak

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Lessons Learned

• President/Provost Involvement
• Seek assistance from them, as well as all deans,
  to require involvement in such a major
  undertaking
• Entire campus needs to understand the significance

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Lessons Learned

• Well-Defined Committee Structure
• Set-up a well defined committee structure to
  oversee the portal development
• Allow the committee structure to evolve as tasks
  are accomplished and the focus of activities
  change

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Lessons Learned

• Good Communication
• Maintain good communication lines with the entire
  campus about developments with the portal
• One tool we use is a Web site showing tools,
  presentations, training, etc.
• http//www.cmu.edu/webforum/

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Lessons Learned

• Invest Substantial Time Choosing Portal Software
• Decide what components of the package you need to
  buy from the vendor and what parts you can modify
  or develop from scratch with your own programming
  staff
• We chose EpiCentric / Vignette

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Lessons Learned

• Collaborative Tools
• Find easy and helpful collaborative tools to
  share communication within and between committees
• We use a Wiki to share documents amongst our
  various subcommittees
• Twiki site http//twiki.org/

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Lessons Learned

• Design from a Customer Perspective
• Simple to use
• Dependable and predictable
• Demonstrate value (or deliver results)
• Make the user more self-reliant

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Lessons Learned

• Culture Change Will Be Needed
• Users may need to be encourage dept. by dept. to
  see the potential
• For those whove been at an institution longer,
  previous methods of communication and finding
  information are entrenched
• The major trendsand challengesare social and
  are profoundly changing how content is created,
  collected, used, shared and preserved

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Lessons Learned

• Capability to Gradually Change
• The portal should change as the status and the
  activity in it changes
• Successful portals are bi-directional, enabling
  users to make real-time transactions, such as
  finding timely information, using changeable
  scheduling, or using financial services

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Lessons Learned

• Strong Relationship Between the Library and
  Computing Services
• Key to success
• Allows for a strong library presence in portal
  development
• Leads to improved visibility for the libraries
• Opens the door for other new initiatives in the
  future

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Present State (since Aug. 2004)
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Usage by Student Group
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Whats Ahead for the Near Future?

• WebForum
• http//www.cmu.edu/webforum/
• Comprised of various subcommittees, each assigned
  with various tasks
• The WebForum itself meets once per semester with
  all webmasters / stakeholders

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Leadership Committee

• Coordinate the meetings and communications of the
  Web Forum
• Carry out the recommendations of the Forum
• Suggest broad goals and priorities for the Web
  Forum
• Create and manage subcommittees
• Make tactical decisions in support of strategic
  goals set forth in the Forum

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Content Management

• http//www.cmu.edu/webforum/content-management/
• Improve the timeliness of information
• Improve the accuracy of information
• Help make information easier to find
• Help make Web sites and other information
  processes work more efficiently

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Infrastructure

• http//www.cmu.edu/webforum/infrastructure/
• Focus on the evolution of the University's Web
  development toolkit and backend systems

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Marketing

• http//www.cmu.edu/webforum/marketing/
• How do we communicate with our users?
• What is the purpose of that communication?
• How do we measure our effect?
• How can we improve the user's experience without
  compromising necessary individuality?
• What information do we want to gather from our
  collective Web services to better inform our
  efforts?

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Portal

• http//www.cmu.edu/webforum/portal/
• What is our vision and strategy?
• Tactical details of development efforts
• Continue past work in usability
• Identify applications to add
• Look at targeting
• Address interface design

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Search

• http//www.cmu.edu/webforum/search/
• Determine whether we should develop and deploy an
  improved search system
• If so, recommend a solution

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Standards and Practices

• http//www.cmu.edu/webforum/standards-practices/
• How do Web professionals make best use of the
  universitys development toolkit?
• Deal with Web testing for usability and
  accessibility

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Library Involvement is Key

• We have at least one library staff member on
  every subcommittee, as well as the overall
  Leadership Committee
• We seek to collaborate on initiatives that are of
  interest to the libraries
• We step up to volunteer for beta testing of
  applications of use in the libraries
• We promote the portal from our library Web site
  and in library instruction

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Summary

• We have a lot of work weve completed
• Much more work ahead to continue to ensure the
  success of our campus portal development
• Learning from our mistakes and our lessons, you
  can make productive and informed decisions for
  your own institution
• You dont want to invest and work hard at
  implementing a portal and then find it in the
  trash bin because it does not meet your needs

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Further Reading

• Bell, Steven J. (2004, January). Promotion
  through teachnology. Library Journal
  netConnect. Available at http//www.libraryjourna
  l.com/article/CA371208.
• Green, Kenneth C. (2004, October). 2004
  National Survey of Information Technology in U.S.
  Higher Education. Available at
  http//www.campuscomputing.net/summaries/2004/.
• Harvey, Melissa J. (2004, March). Opening
  doors Libraries and portals. Computer in
  Libraries Conference. Available at
  http//www.cs.cmu.edu/missy/Portals/index.ppt.
• Ipri, Tom Sell, James H. (2005, Feb.).
  Opening the portal to better relationships.
  Computers in Libraries, 25(2).
• Lakos, Amos A. (2004, Oct./Nov.). Portals in
  libraries Portal vision. Bulletin of the
  American Society for Information Science and
  Technology, 31(1). Available at
  http//www.asis.org/Bulletin/Oct-04/lakos2.html.
• OCLC. (2004, Sept.). 2004 Information Format
  Trends Content, Not Containers. Available at
  http//www5.oclc.org/downloads/community/2004infot
  rends_content.pdf.
• OCLC. (2002, June). How academic librarians can
  influence students Web-based information
  choices. OCLC White Paper on the Information
  Habits of College Students. Available at
  http//www2.oclc.org/oclc/pdf/printondemand/inform
  ationhabits.pdf.
• Sennema, Greg. (2004, Jan.). Creating an
  internal content management system. Computers in
  Libraries, 24(1). Available at
  http//www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jan04/sennema.shtm
  l.