Portals, Libraries, and Avoiding the Trash Bin

Computers in Libraries 2005Missy HarveyCarnegie Mellon Universityharvey@andrew.cmu.eduMarch 2005

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

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

Relationships

Portal Content TargetsGroups of Users = (Relationship)

Users May Be:

Department Heads Staff in History Graduate Students in Physics Student Members of a Student Organization

PortletsPortal 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

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

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

Distance Education

16 Distance Education Programs

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

Impact on University LibrariesAdequate 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

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)

Event Calendar

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

Green, K. C. 2004 National Survey of Information Technology in U.S. Higher Education.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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/

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

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/

Lessons Learned

Design from a Customer Perspective

Simple to use

Dependable and predictable

Demonstrate value (or deliver results)

Make the user more self-reliant

Lessons Learned

Culture Change Will Be Needed

Users may need to be encourage dept. by dept. to see the potential

For those who’ve been at an institution longer, previous methods of communication and finding information are entrenched

The major trends—and challenges—are social and are profoundly changing how content is created, collected, used, shared and preserved

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

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

Present State (since Aug. 2004)

%age of population using Portal

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Faculty Staff Masters Doctoral

AY 2005

2005

Usage by Student Group

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior 5th YearSenior

AY 2005

2005

What’s 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

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

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

Infrastructure

http://www.cmu.edu/webforum/infrastructure/

Focus on the evolution of the University's Web development toolkit and backend systems

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?

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

Search

http://www.cmu.edu/webforum/search/

Determine whether we should develop and deploy an improved search system

If so, recommend a solution

Standards and Practices

http://www.cmu.edu/webforum/standards-practices/

How do Web professionals make best use of the university’s development toolkit?

Deal with Web testing for usability and accessibility

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

Summary

We have a lot of work we’ve 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 don’t 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

Further Reading

Bell, Steven J. (2004, January). Promotion through “teachnology.” Library Journal netConnect. Available at http://www.libraryjournal.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/2004infotrends_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/informationhabits.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.shtml.