[email protected] portals: the buzzword of 1999 suzana lisanti cwis facilitator massachusetts...
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Portals: the buzzword of 1999
Suzana LisantiCWIS FacilitatorMassachusetts institute of Technology
Common Solutions Group, October 1999
Portals
• What are they?– Mega-portal (AOL, Yahoo, Netscape) – Enterprise portals– Special-interest portals (vortal)
• Benefits
• Risks
Benefits of “my” portal
• Daily content in one location
• Easier login (goal)
• Navigational value – Time saved not having to type favorite urls,
search terms
• E-commerce linkage may facilitate workflow
Semantic confusion - new services as “portal”• Typical lists
– Academic Services– Course Resources: syllabi, access to teacher’s online
office hours, eConferencing, discussion forums and student/teacher homepages
– Campus auctions, event calendars, student communities, and post/find it tools (rideshare, roommates, tutors, etc).
– Research Center– Career Center– Web Shopping (discounts on Travel, Computers,
Books, Clothing, Music, Events )
A successful portal
• Recognizes the user
• Displays dynamic content
• Facilitates Workflow – single login to disparate services– moves the customer through business processes
• Has customizable views and tools
• Is clear about its scope
Relationships
• Build community or balkanize?– my.mit, my.sloan, my.physics– Peoplesoft uses “roles” concept
• Cognitive maps – internal vs external, marketing/service– referrals require a common language
E-commerce
• “Keep out e-commerce” is a red herring
• The devil is in the details - manage the contracts
• Guidelines for linking, sponsorship, and ads
Privacy
• Whose customer?– A school, department, or university?
• Privacy policies– can we trust 3rd party companies as data
guardians
• Portable profiles, possibly customer-managed?
Full disclosure
• Require full disclosure
• Hidden deals for placement on search results
• Browsers act like search engines– internet key words, destinations
• On what basis does a link show up
Someday
• Portals will seem really “flat”
• What’s coming is more interaction with the human being on the other side of the screen
Build, buy, or barter?
• Pressure to develop a portal without a pragmatic web strategy
• Define clear goals
• Acceptable authentication & security needs to be in place
I/T management risks
• Increased complexity in security, privacy, administration, and service
• Expensive to integrate legacy apps
• Expensive to manage vendors