Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

INSIDE IOWA STATE
May 24, 2002

Pilot project looks at one-stop portal pages

by Diana Pounds
An Iowa State group is working on a pilot project that would provide customized Web pages to students, faculty and staff.

The Portal Task Force envisions a one-stop portal page tailored to the individual. A freshman math major signing onto his page, for example, might see his mail, class schedule, U-bill and calendar, announcements for math students, movie reviews, news of the day and any other information he has selected for the page. An engineering professor signing onto her page might see her class lists, U-bill, departmental or college announcements, news headlines and more.

"The project objective is to develop a framework for a single entry point of access to services such as AccessPlus, WebMail and WebCT, as well as content from many areas of campus," said Maury Hope, director of Administrative Data Processing and a member of the task force.

The task force hopes to begin testing the pilot portal project next fall. It will be based on uPortal, a free, sharable portal under development by institutions of higher education. More information on uPortal can be found at the JA-SIG (Java in Administration Special Interest Group) Web site.

The task force includes representatives from Academic Information Technologies, ADP Center, Continuing Education and Communications Services, the Library, Student Affairs and University Relations.

Those who have suggestions or comments on the proposed portal can send them to portal@iastate.edu.