UBC’s e-Strategy: uPortal and Open Source Applications

Presented to

McGill University Portal Executive Committee

October 24, 2003

Ted Dodds, CIO, University of British Columbia

eResearcheLearning

People

eCommunity

eBusiness Connectivity

Sustaining Operations

The Framework

uPortal at UBC

Very early adopter

– Partly defensive to “free” portal vendors of the day– uPortal has outlasted initial competition

Collaborative development

– Contracted with IBS in early 2000– Development and (Java) skills transfer– Rebuild application development capacity in ITServices– Regular multi-institution developers meetings ongoing

uPortal at UBC

“myUBC” in production September 2000

– uPortal “0.9” – Main channels: web-mail, SIS, calendar– Adoption targeted at incoming cohort (~5,000)– Use grew rapidly to 34,000 users, primarily students

First mover benefits

– UBC was early contributor to JA-SIG clearinghouse– Continue to contribute– Also seek to leverage contributions of others– Upgraded to uPortal 2.0 rather recently

uPortal International Adoption

Adoption continues to increase

– Based on informal survey– More than doubled in past year– 50% outside USA

Multilingual support

– French, Japanese, Swedish– US-based interest in Spanish– Both framework and channels

Mellon Foundation funding

– US$750,000 over 3 years

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uPortal Current and Future

InfoWorld Nov 7/2003

– Nominated for Top 100 software products

Development plans for 3.0

– JSR 168 enabled (standard portlets)– WSRP Remote Portlet Consumer (remote producer)– Delivery date TBA, possible mid-2004

JSR 168 “portlets”

– Pluggable user interface components that provide a presentation layer to Information Systems

uPortal and the “Portal Business”Turning from portal software to

– Adapters and connectors– Implementation expertise and services

Portal frameworks becoming standard/commodity

– Applications becoming focus, hence JSR 168

Risk of implementation failure

– Primary cause: lack of content (“empty” portal)– Gartner: 20% is shelfware– Meta: 30% failure rate (better than IT average!)

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Source: Jim Farmer’s report on Enterprise Portals Conference, Chicago, Sept. 30/2003

uPortal and the “Portal Business”uPortal continues to compete favourably

– User base, technology, open standards– SAKAI would augment uPortal’s position in Higher Ed.

Open Source can complement commercial

– Luminous product based on uPortal– Unicon (formerly IBS) continued engagement and

commitment– Open really means open

SAKAI Project

Five member consortium

– Michigan– MIT– Indiana– uPortal– OKI

Purpose

– “Code mobility” through open source– Overcome technical and timing challenges– Portal and CMS – Fall 2004– Existing IP integrated – Fall 2005

Related Open Source Projects

SAKAI institutions offer extensive code base

– Institutional level commitment to open source– Belief that sharing provides greater value than

individual attempts to commercialize local innovation

Appications sampler

– Course management (CHEF, Michigan)– Content management (CUCMS, Columbia)– Workflow (EDEN, Indiana)– Personal information (Chandler, OSAF)– Portal (uPortal, JA-SIG)– Identity management (CAS, Yale)

Institutional Collaboration

SAKAI Model

– More examples of collaboration in US than Canada– Networking a possible exception– UBC and UCB

Actively discussing joint projects

Canadian Collaboration

– McGill and UBC appear to have similar vision– Focusing on end-user (productivity, effectiveness,

service)– Opportunity to explore common needs and

collaboration possibilities