Www.portal.ac.uk/spp Developing portal services: the Subject Portals Project Rosemary Russell SPP Project Manager UKOLN, University of Bath [email protected]

www.portal.ac.uk/spp

Developing portal services: the Subject Portals Project

Rosemary Russell

SPP Project Manager UKOLN, University of Bath

[email protected]

ELAG 2004


The Subject Portals Project

• Originally– 2 year project ended August 2003 (phase I)– Started life as SAD (!) (Subject Access to the

DNER) research project

• Now– SPP phase II runs from Sept 2003 – August 2004– Funded by JISC, as part of the Portals programme

(JISC = the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher and Further Education Funding Councils)


SPP, RDN & Hubs

SPP builds on the Resource Discovery Network• RDN consists of:

– RDNC (Resource Discovery Network Centre)– Hubs - independent service providers

• Hubs– provide data for the RDN – subject gateways to Internet resources– quality resources - selected, indexed and described

by specialists


Hub partners in SPP


SPP lead partners


Portals defined

• Definition

Technically, a portal is a network service that brings together content from diverse distributed resources using technologies such as cross searching, harvesting, and alerting, and collates this into an aggregated form for presentation to the user, usually via a website (JISC)


Typical portal features

• single point of access for particular audience• broad array of resources and services brought

together from one source

• sense of community

• customisation, personalisation, integration

• portal types - subject portals, data type portals, user community portals, institutional portals…


Project rationale

Current UK HE/FE Information Environment– lots of disparate information services – each with its own user interface– many interfaces to learn, search, and keep up to

date with changes

JISC 5 Year Strategy for the IE– clear need to enhance discovery of and access to

content– concept: to provide seamless discovery across

multiple content providers


Aims of SPP

• the portalisation of RDN services• to provide seamless access to a range of

subject based information resources for users in the UK Higher and Further Education community (and beyond)

• use same technology to surface subject based content in third party environments eg institutional portals, VLEs


Portal functions

• Core– authentication– customisation– user data storage

• Portlets– searching– newsfeeds– alerting– ‘additional services’ eg e-journal searching



Searching

• parallel cross searching

• Z39.50 mainly, but extensible– OAI

• Athens compliant

• single consistent interface

• search history

• record storage, export


Access to resources

• resource wish list compiled by Hubs

• negotiations with resource providers

• technical access issues

• most providers happy to cooperate

• authorised access



Newsfeeds and alerting

• Newsfeeds– RSS1.0 extensible

• events, subject information

– searchable

• Alerting– email alerts available to registered users– created from user’s subject interests and

selected sources– newsfeed based, but extensible


Modular development

• plug-in portlets

• choose functions to install

• non-framework specific– possible to embed portlets in other portal

environments eg uPortal

• demonstrator based on Apache Jetspeed portal framework


Standards

• Compliance with emerging portal standards

• JSR168– Java portlet standard

• WSRP– remote portlet communication protocol– portals aggregate remote portlets


Current work (1)

• interface - implementing recommendations from usability testing

• developing additional services– eJournal portlet – OAI to harvest data– newsfeed searching– events database

• installation of beta portal software at the 8 Hub sites (1 up and running!)– testing and review


Current Work (2)

• uPortal integration– standards-based – working with University of Birmingham

• evaluation– impact on users– external evaluation by consultants

• open source– copyright and licences

• exit strategy


Questions

• Any questions?

Documents

Www.portal.ac.uk/spp Developing portal services: the Subject Portals Project Rosemary Russell SPP Project Manager UKOLN, University of Bath [email protected]