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A Distance Learning Video
Conference
Definitions On the off chance that you have been extended leave on an unplugged tropical island resort and haven’t heard of Internet portals, let’s start with a few definitions. According to Webopedia [webopedia.com] a Portal is "a Web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and on-line shopping malls. The first Web portals were online services, such as AOL, that provided access to the Web, but by now most of the traditional search engines have transformed themselves into Web portals to attract and keep a larger audience." Variations on the consumer portals are "corporate portals, vortals and business intelligence portals." A Corporate Portal is "an internal Web site (intranet) that provides proprietary, enterprise-wide information to company employees as well as access to selected public Web sites and vertical-market Web sites (suppliers, vendors, etc.). It includes a search engine for internal documents as well as the ability to customize the portal page for different user groups and individuals. It is the internal equivalent of the general-purpose portal on the Web." A Vortal is a "a vertical-market Web site that provides information and services to a particular industry. It is the industry-specific equivalent of the general-purpose portal on the Web." A Business Intelligence Portal is "a corporate portal that enables users to query and produce reports on enterprise-wide databases. The term was coined by Information Advantage, makers of the MyEureka software, which was the first to combine BI software with a corporate portal."
Three authoritative speakers at the
Spring SLA videoconference discussed the topic, "Exploring the Possibilities of
Information Portals." Not only did Susan Klopper, Director of Business Research
Center, Arthur Andersen in Atlanta, discuss "what is an information portal and
it’s value and role," but Howard McQueen, founder and CEO of McQueen
Consulting, delved into the characteristics of an effective information portal
and Steve Arnold, President of Arnold Information Technologies, rounded off the
videoconference with a look at "the Future for Information Portals" and
librarians. It was a jam-packed information session. This is a summary a few of
the salient points. What is an Information Portal, its Value and Role/ presented by Susan Klopper Ms. Klopper defines an information portal as "a gateway to structured and unstructured data, an aggregation of internal and external information, having a personalized interface with custom access and providing analytical and reporting capabilities." So what’s the difference between an information portal and the regular ol’ Internet portal? Most of the Internet portals we are familiar with are directed toward a broad consumer audience. These contain an aggregation of wide-ranging content, services, applications and commerce. Well-known examples are Yahoo! and AOL.com. These broad-based audience services are also known as horizontal portals (lots of breadth, but limited depth). The other type of Internet portal is the vertical portal, which targets a niche audience. Content is focused on a specific industry or niche. Users are linked to related industries, suppliers, products & services specific to that vertical market. The ideal information portal offers community and customization as well as relevant and focused content. Ms. Klopper uses Amazon.com as an example of customer personalization. As we all know, when we order a book from Amazon.com a "me profile" is created. The next time I visit, the amazing Amazon.com knows who I am, what my subject interests are and suggests additional ways for me to spend my e-dollars! Ms. Klopper states that one of the differences between Internet portals and a corporate portal is the move away from simply "content" to "context." Through studying click through patterns and using intelligent agents, a user’s information habits are monitored, analyzed and used to create a more personalized or customized experience. Whereas author, location and specific project make no difference in Internet portals, these elements provide the "context" for the content in a corporate portal. Corporate portals are "knowledge management enablers." They support and nurture sharing and co-operation, build incentives to trust and sharing and combine data aggregation and information integration with knowledge worker collaboration. A corporate portal offers a solution to information overload. It reduces unnecessary duplication by providing access to corporate best practices. It builds community and enables communities of practice. Ms. Klopper also points out the important of co-operation between content managers and technology managers. The corporate portal is not owned by either one, but to be successful, needs to be a collaborative effort.
Mr. McQueen’s definition focuses not on what an information portal is or is not, but rather on what it should do. An information portal is "the application of Internet technologies to improve speed and reliability of decision-making and improve the quality, persistence and extensibility of relationships to resources." Information portals do more than provide content. They "bring content to consumers", put content and people together. Mr. McQueen’s seven components of an information portal:
Classification and taxonomy and Full-text and fielded indexing "Most business people don’t like to search – they would rather browse," says Mr. McQueen. If this is true, then portal developers need to focus more on browsing and navigation. Elements such as references to other links (see also’s), dynamic content windows, current content with highly relevant links are the next generation of Intranets. The challenge for vendors is how precise can automated content categorization systems be. In reality most vendor systems can only deal with 65% of your content. According to Mr. McQueen, it is a myth that "high precision classification can be automated." Manual intervention i.e. cataloguers, indexers, meta-taggers, or whatever you want to call them, are still very necessary. Examples of automated content categorization systems include:
Content Management and Content Conversion to Web-formats Database-driven content management sites can reduce total cost of ownership, and free content management personnel from mundane tasks. Content is easier to maintain when it is database driven. The database can also be used to automate such things as workflow approval, content update and content expiry. Database-driven content management also frees the content managers from worrying about how to HTML code or other programming issues and lets them focus on content development and management. In summary, Mr. McQueen notes some of the keys to designing a successful information portal:
Challenges According to Mr. McQueen, the biggest challenges are cultural challenges. We’ve all encountered this one before. How do we change a corporate culture that rewards "information as power" to one that recognizes "knowledge sharing" as a competitive advantage? Another challenge, says Mr. McQueen, is the proliferation of portals within an organization. How will the different content be consolidated? Mr. McQueen offers the idea of a "federation portal" that provides a consolidated view, cross-portal searching and cross-portal OLAP (online analytical processing)." Portal software vendor market is rapidly consolidating. Mr. McQueen predicts that by the year 2002 there will be less than 100 players. If you are contemplating building an information portal then be ready to audit your component parts every 3-4 months to keep them "best-of-breed." Given that only 40-60% of your technology will survive you’ll need to find a sponsor with vision, grit, deep pockets and the willingness to accept that 1out of every 3 projects will end in failure due to rapid changes in technology.
A Look into the Future/presented by Stephen E. Arnold What does Mr. Arnold see for the future? As user expectations soar, libraries and librarians need to shift to content services. The interface of the future will include personalization, 7x24 access, diverse content and interactive, rich media. Information will be exposed, there will be search capability, real-time or near-real time updates and options. Branded content will be prominent because corporate decision-makers recognize brands. For example, having "Goldman Sachs Research" on your information portal will mean something and have a measurable "value-add" for your corporate client. Taking a closer look at the library environment, Mr. Arnold sees the OPAC’s of the future has having, in addition to the standard library functionality:
Mr. Arnold’s advice for the future: "Have an evolution strategy and find professionals who can make content the catalyst for a library."
A usual, there was a question and answer period after each presenter and at the end of the conference. For a review the questions and answers as well as the slide presentations, please visit the SLA Distance Learning section of the SLA Web site [www.sla.org]
Building An Intranet Portal/by Joshua Walker with Ted Schadler, Amanda J. Ciardelli, Christine Spivey Overby, The Forrester Report (01/99) CIO Alert: Be Prepared to Support Multiple Portals in Your Enterprise/by G. Phifer, Inside GartnerGroup, (04/19/00) Important Distinctions Between Enterprise Portals and Knowledge Management/ by K. Harris, G. Phifer, S. Hayward, Inside GartnerGroup, (08/25/99) The Parting Of The Portal Seas/by Charlene Li with Chris Charron, Susan Shindler, Amy Dash, Tim Grimsditch, The Forrester Report (12/99) Ponder the Peril of Portals, by Patricia Seybold, Business 2.0 (11/1999)http://www.business2.com/content/magazine/marketing/1999/11/01/11446The Portal Keepers, by Paul Franson, UPSIDE Magazine (07/01/2000) http://www.upside.com/texis/mvm/story?id=393bec690 VerticalNet.com XNET Consortium, ‘How to Integrate your Intranet—Building a Portal’ http://www.cio.com/xnet/0400_portal.html Conference summary by Mary Hum, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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