Portals in Higher Education: concepts and models

Abstract

Portals are the latest in a long line of technologies that universities have been told will solve all their problems. Portals are designed to enhance work and learning processes by making work flows simpler and information more readily available in a form in which it can be processed. However, like many other technologies portals will not live up to all the hype currently surrounding their promotion. The report describes the main features of portals in higher education, and explores how an institutional portal might affect the work of a typical academic. The author sets portal development in the ontext of 'web services', an attempt to move away from a 'monolithic' approach to computing applications (entailing duplication of function, excessive complexity and user knowledge of multiple interfaces) to a integrated model, where smaller, discrete 'services' are combined for specific users and purposes. This improves customization and productivity. The range of portal 'types' are reviewed (proprietary higher education specialist, corporate generic and open source), and the implications for institutional adoption considered.