Portals%20and%20CMS%20

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Portals and CMS Why You Need Them Both

• paul.browning_at_bristol.ac.uk

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Route map

• Environmental scan
• What is a CMS?
• What is a Portal?
• How does the CMS relate to the Portal?
• Demo (maybe some magic, if theres time)
• Some reflections

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True confessions

• We dont (yet) have a centrally supported CMS
• We dont have an institutional portal
• We plan to have made decisions on both by August
  2002
• What follows is a mix of vaporware, prototypes
  and incomplete understanding

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Environmental scan I

• From the viewpoint of a research-led University
  say five years ago
• The Web is not life threatening
• The Web is another hassle what is it replacing?
• Were over-subscribed with well qualified
  candidates
• Itll be very expensive to put a server in
  Mexico

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The pre-millennial Web

• A hobby for someone
• Apache on a file system
• Highly manual methods of content creation and
  maintenance
• In effect a read-only medium
• A spot of Perl
• A Webmaster
• Let the professionals get back to serious
  computing

• Three clicks away from crap

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Environmental scan II

• From the viewpoint of a research-led University
  today
• DDA 1995 SENDA 2001
• September 2002
• Perhaps the Web is career threatening?
• Lets re-do the Web to make it accessible
• Lets re-paint the Forth Road Bridge again and
  again and again
• Lets work harder rather than smarter

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The pre-millennial Web cant scale

• The pre-millennial Web is broken
• We need a Web Content Management System
• A web site is like a dog its for life
• We need to move beyond the Freds in the Shed
• We need a dynamic, automated, write-enabled,
  de-skilled Web ..
• .. supported by a multi-skilled Web Team (who
  never touch the content)

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The content life cycle
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The defining features of a CMS

• A CMS has substantial overlaps with DMS, VLEs,
  Groupware, Weblogs, Portals .
• Browning Lowndes (2001)
• Versioning (checkout/in, rollback)
• Workflow
• Integration (joinupability)
• Not a finished product a concept, a set of
  processes, a framework

CMS Portal
v x
v x
v v
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The most desirable features of a CMS
(IWMW, 2000)

1. Template-based self-service authoring for
   non-technical content providers (frictionless
   publishing)
2. Roles-based security
3. Workflow management - submit, review, approve,
   archive
4. Integration with existing data/databases and user
   authentication systems
5. Metadata management
6. Flexible output - write once, publish many times

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The Prospectus in 5 BC(Before Cms)
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The Prospectus in 5 AC(After Cms)
Printer
Browser
Web pages
Standard
Browser
CMS
Robot
Text-to- speech
Browser
Browser
CD-ROM
Browser
Departments
Admissions
Marketing
Web Team
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CMS in 2002

• If you havent got one or arent thinking about
  getting one then you either

• Have a web site of less than 100 pages or
• Have a web site with less than three authors or
• Are probably dead meat

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Portal MLE VLE CMS
Content Management System (CMS)
eStrategy an institutional understanding of
these relationships?
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What is a portal?
A portal

• Aggregates information and applications one stop
  shop
• Is personalised or groupilised one size does
  not fit all
• Aspires to be your desktop on the Web Webtop

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Examples of portals

• Law Intranet
• Blackboard
• Amazon
• Tesco
• LSE for You

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The benchmark? LSE For You
Modules (channels) already implemented
Room Booking Student Photo Boards Tuition Fees
Address Maintenance Emergency Contacts Private Accommodation
Exam Results Reprographics Usage Reprographics Jobs
Mailing Lists Teaching Timetable Payslips
Examination Details Class Mailer Locate a Study Room
Transcripts DPA Consent LSE Experts
Application Progress Collect Network Account Alumni Employment
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The benchmark? LSE For You
Room Booking
Teaching Timetable
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The benchmark? LSE For You
Address Maintenance
Tuition Fees
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What is a portal architecture? Why bother?
Before (i.e. now) ..
User confusion?
Lots of stovepipes of variable length
Pseudo- webified
Desk- topped
Webified
Invisible
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What is a portal architecture?Aggregation
After ..
Portal framework
Extending, bending and merging the stovepipes
Pseudo- webified
Desk- topped
Webified
PORTALISED
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What is a portal architecture?Personalisation
stickiness
After ..
Portal framework
Multiple views depending on user and/or device
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Ahem . dont some CMS do

• Aggregation (a.k.a. syndication)?
• Personalisation?
• And other bits of a portal framework?

Yes .

• Conversant, Frontier (News/magazine type)
• Vignette, Broadvision (E-business/e-commerce
  type)
• Zope CMF (Framework type)

Which is why you need to be clear about the join
between the CMS and the portal
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Dogs dinner alert I .

• what follows are just sketches
• by someone with a poor sense of screen design
• aimed at demonstrating some concepts
• a future portal will not look like this!

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The back office a customisable Webtop
View of CMS and other content repositories to
which you have write access
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The portal is fundamentally content-free the
CMS holds the content
Tools to automagically upload, convert and
publish Office files
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What makes a good portal framework?

• Interoperable (open standards)
• Agnostic
• Secure
• Flexible (incl. skins)
• Stable, scaleable, supportable
• Future proof

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Candidate portal frameworks?

• Blackboard Level 2 û
• Blackboard Level 3 - Now BB Learning System
  32k/annum lt 60k consultancy for set-up?
• Zope û
• Long list of payware options û
• Short list
• Oracle Portal ?
• uPortal ?

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Demo

• Is there time?
• If not, and youd like see it, then back here _at_
  1730

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Oracle Portal demo

• Glasgow Caledonian

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uPortal demo

• Delaware

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Dogs dinner alert II .

• what follows is a proto-prototype
• constructed by staff with other day jobs and
  some students
• no concessions made w.r.t. usability or
  presentation
• running on a desktop PC
• aimed at demonstrating some concepts
• Aggregation
• Integration
• Personalisation
• Customisation
• a future portal will not look or work like this!

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uPortal demo

• Bristol out of the box
• Bristol prototype

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What is a portal architecture?
Browsers
Application server
Content
The portal is fundamentally content-free the
CMS holds the content
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LoadsaXs to get our heads round

• XML
• XSLT
• XHTML

Browser
Printer
WAP
XSLT
XML
uPortal
Application or Data
XHTML
We all need a Sebastian Rahtz!
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Some reflections

• CMS?Portal
• Siloware vs. Glueware
• Senior managers
• Whos the CTO?
• IWMW 2003
• Putting lipstick on bulldogs

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CMS?Portal
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How wed like things to be .
SIS
Portal framework
CMS
Digital Library
Agnostic, open standards compliant plugs and
sockets
DNER
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but how it often is
SIS
Digital Library
Portal framework
CMS
just sockets do it our way
DNER
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Doncha love Senior Managers?

• Why cant we just use Google?
• We dont need a portal we just need a
  well-designed Web site
• Our SIS is Best of Breed so it must be good
• Why cant we just use Outlook and Exchange?

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Whos the CTO?

• Your Director of IT Services?
• UCISA? Siloware is often golfcourseware
• It gets sold to senior executives by
  smooth-talking sales executives who claim their
  products solve every conceivable business
  problem, is a doddle to install, standards
  compliant, holographic user interfaces,
  everything.
• SCONUL?
• ALT?
• JISC?
• eEnvoy?
• Whos the CIO?

We need to be investing in glueware and the
people who can use it
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The Scaleable Web(IWMW 2003)

• Making it easy for the end-user means more
  complexity behind the scenes
• The increasing dynamic Web will start to fail as
  sites get busier
• Who in your institution is looking at
• Load balancing
• Clustering
• Cacheing
• Amazon Tesco have
• Overlaps with the GRID?

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The technology is the easier bit

• "The worst thing you can do is to Web-enable a
  bad process," said Friedlein. "As a client once
  put it 'There's no point in putting lipstick on
  a bulldog,'" he added.
• Getting content management strategy right, ZD Net
  UK, Dec 12th, 2001, Geoff Choo

From Information Strategy to eStrategy?
Future performance target Four clicks away from
7x24 crap
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(No Transcript)
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From Desktop to Webtop An Information Systems
Strategy?
Many readers, some writers
Multiple views, depending on role