E-Business: Vision and Strategy

An enterprise-wide portal for the University of

MinnesotaRobert B. Kvavik

Associate Vice President

Web Master Meeting

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Questions to be addressed

• Why are portals relevant to universities?• Where do portals fit in our overall

technology plan?• What are the challenges, benefits, risks,

and outcomes?• Where, why, and how should we begin?

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

What is driving change?• Rising customer expectations and demand for

customer access and control• Demand for simplicity and transparency in an

increasingly complex environment• Elimination of procedural

controls/simplification of processes• Dynamics of a new labor force (high

expectations, unwillingness to be on trailing edge)

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Portals are first and foremost about improving service to ensure enduring relationships with clients.

They give each user a unique, personal and

preferred perspective of the university.

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Portals are about community building, and especially the development and nurturing

of learning communities

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Portals afford us the opportunity to transform key business processes through

the use of Internet technologies to improve

service to customers

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

How can I use portals and e-business?

• Distribute content information and communications:– Web searching, news, reference tools, digitized

library materials, e-mail and chat groups• Education and training:

– Technology enhanced learning (TEL), video streaming, course delivery to distant locations

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

How do I use them?• Provide staff and student services

via the Web• Create a common portal which

provides referrals and dynamic links to other ISPs

• Pulls it together as a one-stop service

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

How do I use them?• Convenient: linked transactions,

automation, and self-help• Customized: meets individual

service needs• Markets: selling and buying of

goods and services

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

How do I use them?• Global reach: markets for

distance education• Build and manage relationships:

promotes brand awareness and loyalty

• Redefine business relationships• Manage risk and compliance

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Portals: what do they look like? What should

they do?

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

The U of M One Stop:http://onestop.umn.edu/

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Work Learning Fun Community More...

Mail 50 new messages FFN 3 document to approve

EGMS Proposals in progress

WebCT

Financial status of your budgets

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Faculty Portal

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Finances Dashboard

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Student Admissions Portal

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

'Click' here for Address File for the list

'Click' here for Registration Summary

'Click' here for policy on student records privacy

'Click' here to send e-mail to student

'Click' here to save report to your desktop

Deanna OlsenJonathan OlsenMatthew OlsenTimothyOlsenPamela OlsenJanelle OlsenPaul OlsenShandy OlsenScott OlsenDavid OlsenRachel OlsenThomas OlsenBrian OlsenBruce OlsenAmber OlsenKristin Olsen

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Portal capacities• Transactions• Planning• Performance assessment• Marketing

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Implementing portals and at the

University

The virtual university and process redesign

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

• Vertical integration versus cross-departmental

• Hierarchical and silo structures of university service units versus enterprise-wide solutions

The challenges

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

• Administrative solutions versus self-service

• Producer-centric versus customer-centric culture

• Specialists versus generalists

The challenges

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Auto Transaction Auto Transaction

Self Help Self Help

Generalist Generalist

Specialist Specialist

Old ProcessOld Process New ProcessNew Process

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

The challenges (Net Ready). Are we at risk?

• Efficiency– How efficient is the relationship between

the university and a student?• Digitizability

– How digitizable is the product or service we provide?

• Customizable – How customizable is the product or service

we provide?

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Are we at risk? (cont.)• Fragmentation

– How fragmented is the market in which we operate?

• Attitudinal readiness– How ready are students to accept new ways of

learning and doing business with the university?

• Velocity– How critical is the need for speed in the

delivery of the product or service we provide?

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

• Convenience (integrated services/one-stop)

• Efficiency/cost reduction• Information-based products are

scalable• Customized and personalized services

for producers and customers• More choice

The benefits

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

How do we get there?• The Enterprise Portal must be a

shared resource instead of a private domain owned by one group

• Develop easy navigation systems • Enterprise portal framework that

supports user customization

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

How do we get there?• Content management systems to

create content, and tag it for extraction into portal channels

• Side doors into other enterprise applications creating channels that let a user go directly to a service

• Integration with E-commerce systems

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

How do we get there?• Authentication architecture that

allows for single sign-on to web applications

• Web-based e-mail readers that inter-operate with the portal

• Web-based online course systems that inter-operate with the portal

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Assets•MyOneStop - A first generation portal

framework with some self-service HR and student applications

•X.500 directory - all users have an account, and e-mail address, and a password

•X.500 central authentication hub - leverages the ubiquitous X.500 accounts for single sign-on authentication for web applications

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Assets•FormsNirvana - Online document

approvals and integrated with X.500 authentication

•TechMart - B2B and B2C online store with integration to FormsNirvana for purchase orders and X.500 central authentication

•WebCT - online course framework with a teaching-centric portal in WebCT 3

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Assets•EGMS - online grant proposal preparation

integrated with X.500 central authentication and FormsNirvana

•WebMail Classic and WebMail Pro - web-based POP and IMAP e-mail client software. Integrated with Bento for preferences and X.500 for mail

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Infrastructure needs• IKnowU: a University "friends and family"

analog to the X.500 directory for non-University people who visit the site

•Standards-based channel interfaces into the portal: SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) for rich interactions between the portal and the channel provider

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Infrastructure needs•Bento: a user-preferences storage

system that is independent of applications and language-independent

- Applications speak to Bento via a HTTPS protocol with a simple syntax or an (under development) SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) XML interface

- Bento is an architectural requirement for building scalable systems, since it allows multiple application servers to have access to a common user preference cache

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Infrastructure needs•Second generation portal framework with the following features:

- More user control over the look and feel and subscription to channels in the portal

- Channels that can render in small, medium, and large format based on user preference

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Infrastructure needs•Second generation portal framework with the following features:

- Channels that can tell the user meta-information such as who prepared the information, when it was updated last, where to send comments

- User preferences for look and feel that are carried across applications so that moving from a channel in the portal to an application or site that provided the channel is a seamless experience

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

A new planning structure

User(Students, faculty, staff and alumni)

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Rich, full-featured, easy-to-use,multimedia, interactiveinformation services

Personalized viewstailored to relationships

and authorizations;full range of easy-to-use personalization

and navigation features andpublication/subscription

services

Universal, integrated, distributed,auditable authorization andauthorization management

services

Conceptual Framework for University Information Services

Accurate identification of individuals;appropriate level of identification

depending on task

Interaction for all throughWeb Portals

Anytime, anywhere, anyhow;fast, reliable, recoverable, secure

networking and computing services

Auxillaries, colleges, new for-profit& not-for profit entities

Innovation and Market Forces

Vision

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Measures and outcomes

How will we know if we have been successful?

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Measures and outcomes• The percentage of clients using

self service functions:– 80% of all admission applications done

electronically– 97% of all purchases done electronically– 75 % of all university services can be

provided through one-stop Web-enabled centers

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Measures and outcomes (cont.)

• Customer satisfaction surveys reflect highly satisfied, successful customers

• More processes integrated and online

E-Business: Vision and Strategy

Questions and comments?

Kvavik@umn.edu