Institutional Web Management Workshop 2003

Supporting Our Users

Steve Musgrave

12th June, 2003

Institutional Web Management Workshop

Community Portals

Steve Musgrave

12th June, 2003

A False Dawn over the Field of Dreams

A False Dawn over the Field of Dreams

“If you Build it they will Come”

Three Intertwined Strands

• Telematics

• Information Engineering

• Social Science

When computer networks link people as well as machines they become social networks

(Garton et al 1997)

False Dawn over the Field of Dreams

• Analyses the attributes of community portals

• Considers the business drivers

• Questions the sustainability of such portals

• Suggests a likely direction that portal evolution may take.

Why, What and Who questions

• Why are communities on-line?

• What are Community Portals providing?

• What are the distinguishing features?

• Who are the content providers?

Research Questions

• What are the elements, characteristics and emergent properties that constitute an effective portal for e-community development?

• What Telematic technologies and systems are best suited to ‘portal’ delivery?

Research Survey

…..to gain an understanding of the:

• Drivers

• Benefits,

• Political arguments

• Technology applications

Survey Questionnaires

• 467 Local Authorities in UK

• 180 forms to IT Managers and e-Envoys

• 234 to Chief Exec’s fao Regeneration Off’s

• 53 to Portal project managers.

Number of completed questionnaires

n/a20Follow-up calls

1653Portal project managers

128234Chief Execs/Regen Off’s

25180IT Managers and e-Envoys

receivedsent(467 Local Authorities)

SOCITM Survey

SOCITM Categories

• Promotional

• Content

• Content Plus

• Transactional

SOCITM Top 10 Sites

• Camden, Hertfordshire CC, Tameside MBC, Westminster City

• Birmingham City, Maidstone BC, Stroud DC, Sunderland City, Wrexham CBC, Wandsworth

SOCITM Survey Results

Better Connected 2003

120%

249%

329%

42%

1

2

3

4

0% have no website (down from 1%)

20% are Promotional sites (down by 14%)

49% are Content sites (up by 7%)

29% are Content Plus sites (up by 7%)

2% are Transactional sites(up by 1%)

Promotional

Content

Content Plus

Transactional

What is being looked for in a Community Portal site?

• ….tools to enable content development at sub-regional micro-community level……need more than just a template.

• In particular there is a need for a content authoring toolkit, and integration into back-office services.

Survey Findings

• Gaps in provision

• disparate nature

• need for authoring tools

• lack of integration of services

• constraints on broadband communication infrastructure

Community Portals

• from fragmentation

• to integration

• a hybrid future

Integration

• JCA (J2EE Connector Architecture)• UDDI (Universal Description, Discover

and Integration)• Web Services• WSDL (Web Services Description

Language)• SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)• SRW (Search/Retrieve Web Service)

Overcoming lack of Integration

• Middleware

• Middleware

• Middleware

DfES Website• School Common Transfer Files

www.planning-portal.gov.uk

+Money

• middleware

• middleware

• middleware

• money

Culture

not just islands of technology – more like foreign lands, - and with

culture and language barriers

‘The Online Government Store’

Technical Survey

• Doug Schuler - Wired for Change

…..availability of on-line services is only half of the equation of making the technology accessible and affordable. Access to the hardware needed to connect to on-line services is the other half and Community Computer Centres were established to fill a societal need. Installing computer terminals in all branches of the Seattle public library system provided access. Schuler: 1996

Telecommunication Infrastructure

• PSTN, ISDN, SDSL

• Fibre services - no speculative dig!

• Satellite services for rural communities

DiTV for Public Service Access

…we also expect to seeconsiderable cost efficienciesacross government byincorporating departmental andlocal authority DiTV offerings intoa centralised service offering asingle point of entry intogovernment services. It will alsoremove the need for otherdepartments to buildindependent and potentiallyincompatible contentmanagement systems. e-Envoy Andrew Pinder May 2002

UK Online Interactive

Information/Content

• Structured content

• search interfaces to locate relevant resources

• toolkits for local generation of content

Business Process Change

Clicks and Links

www.clicksandlinks.co.uk

www.eastserve.com

www.cybermoor.org

www.connect.org.uk

www.knowsley.gov.uk

DiTV with Telewest

Seamless UK

www.enrichUK.net

Information/Content

content providers

provision

fusioninfrastructure

presentation

portals

shared

services

broker and aggregators

m2minterfaces

Butler Group Portal Model

Comm

unity

Por

tals

Enterp

rise I

nfor

mation

Por

tals (

EIP)

The G

rid -

e-S

cienc

e

EIP / Corporate Portal / Grid

Enterprise Information Portals

• Plumtree

• Hummingbird

• SAP Portals

Linear stages ?

Bas

ic s

ite

Hol

isti

c e-

gov’

t

Interactive

E-publishing

Transactional

Account Mang’t1

1. Basic site

2. E-Publishing

3. Interactive

4. Transactional

5. Holistic e-Gov

52 3 4

Reflection

A tale of two Portals

• BlackburnWorld

• www.blackburnworld.org.uk

• Blackburn East On-line

• www.beonline.org.uk

blackburnworld.com

www.beonline.org.uk

Sunrise

CETIS

http://www.cetis.ac.ukcetis

DeploymentVLE Component

LibraryComponent

SRS Component

MessageServer/ESB/MOM

Directory Service

CETIS

http://www.cetis.ac.ukcetis

Vertical IntegrationMulti-InstitutionalLearning ObjectRepository

College On-line

Yorkshire Forward

Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX)

EducaNext Portal

C-Elect (Huddersfield)

The Online Government Store

The Quality Framework for UK Government Website Design

eDUCATION Environment

Local

Regional

National

VLE

MLE Institutional Portal

Community Portal

Yorkshire Forward

NW eRepository

College On-Line

JORUM

eDUCATION Environment

Local

Regional

National

VLE

MLE Institutional Portal

Community Portal

Yorkshire Forward

NW eRepository

College On-Line

JORUM

UK-online

The End