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Transcript of Www.portal.ac.uk/spp Developing portal services: the Subject Portals Project Rosemary Russell SPP...
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
Developing portal services: the Subject Portals Project
Rosemary Russell
SPP Project Manager UKOLN, University of Bath
ELAG 2004
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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)
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
Hub partners in SPP
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
SPP lead partners
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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)
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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…
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
Portal functions
• Core– authentication– customisation– user data storage
• Portlets– searching– newsfeeds– alerting– ‘additional services’ eg e-journal searching
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
Searching
• parallel cross searching
• Z39.50 mainly, but extensible– OAI
• Athens compliant
• single consistent interface
• search history
• record storage, export
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
Access to resources
• resource wish list compiled by Hubs
• negotiations with resource providers
• technical access issues
• most providers happy to cooperate
• authorised access
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
Standards
• Compliance with emerging portal standards
• JSR168– Java portlet standard
• WSRP– remote portlet communication protocol– portals aggregate remote portlets
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
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
www.portal.ac.uk/spp
Questions
• Any questions?