Portals, Portals, Everywhere and Still No Common Standard Anywhere

Citation

Lukesh, S.S. (2001), "Portals, Portals, Everywhere and Still No Common Standard Anywhere", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918aac.015

Portals, Portals, Everywhere and Still No Common Standard Anywhere

Susan S. Lukesh

Portals, Portals, Everywhere and Still No Common Standard Anywhere

The Corporate Presentation, Portals: The Power of Internet Standards in Higher Education, offered by KPMG Consulting Senior Vice-President Greg J. Baroni, billed itself as offering insights into the benefits of choosing a campus portal that is standards-based rather than product-based. KPMG Consulting recently published (October 2000) a White Paper on portals (Portal White Paper) which covers, among other items, the need for a portal solution, personalization, content creation and management, and a review of higher education industry portals and standards.

Portals are becoming a primary, if not the primary, way that anyone ­ students, administrators, faculty, alumni, and others external to the institution ­ interacts with the institution. As a result, institutions of higher education are paying a great deal of attention to what portals are, what they can do for us, how we develop them, and, of critical importance for the future, what standards should be followed. The importance of this subject for higher education can be measured both by the number of sessions at Educause 2000 covering portals in some fashion and by the recent spate of articles on portals in magazines aimed specifically at the higher education community, including in the Educause Quarterly (Vol. 23 No. 3), "Why you need a campus portal strategy".

Rather than a presentation offering KPMG's views on this subject, the session was a discussion about standards among three vendors with Greg Baroni moderating. (There are today only about 20 higher education enterprise portal (HEEP) products available, although the Gartner Group projects 200 by 2001.) The three vendors and their representatives were Blackboard, Dan Cane, Senior Vice President and Co-founder; Campus Pipeline, John Dunn, Vice President for Sales and Marketing; and CNAV, Mike Martys, Chief Technical Officer. One member of the audience requested that the vendors not present sales pitches and it was refreshing that, in fact, while there was some discussion of individual products, the bulk of the presentation and answers to questions stayed solidly on standards required for portals.

Baroni opened the session suggesting that we are "driving towards a standards-based environment" for portals, and that was the theme throughout the discussion: we need standards; the vendors and users recognize the need for standards for this new middleware; and while we are moving toward them, we are not there. Martys suggested that the times remind him of the development of library catalog systems: first they came online and then we saw the development of standards so that they could be linked.

Each vendor presented his thoughts on standards that are briefly summarized here. As one discussant pointed out, although "there aren't many [standards] today which is why we can say we comply", there are major opportunities in such arenas as authentication and authorization, and arenas for interlinked portals and for moving from portal to portal. Emphasizing the middleware nature of portals, another discussant included the need for standards applied to building of portals on top of existing software at an institution. This highlights the need for standards not only for portal developers but also for the systems that underlie them.

All agreed, not surprisingly, that interoperability was key to the future. J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition), a broad and well-supported standard for Web-application development and integration, is not yet part of any of these vendors' products. CNAV indicated that the standard is viable but they are monitoring it; Blackboard said they were actively monitoring; and Campus Pipeline suggested that "J2EE will enable a defined standard to emerge and offer a robust product". KPMG ­ in their White Paper ­ indicates that "by adhering to J2EE standards, the HEEP can create an open, extensible, and well-designed architecture... [that] afford[s] the enterprise the flexibility to pick and choose components rather than forcibly accepting an external vendor decision".

Additional discussion on XML (extensible mark-up language), LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol), and WAP (wireless access protocol) highlighted the need for portal developers to incorporate these products within their products. Metadata definitions and many data-centric items from search engines to B2B e-commerce transactions can be standardized with the use of XML. The LDAP software protocol allows ready access to directory information, regardless of application and computer platform; Blackboard indicated that it has several years' experience integrating with LDAP, CNAV that it is using LDAP for primary storage, although it has an issue with the access to deeper data. Finally, it was agreed by all that WAP ­ specification for a set of communication protocols that standardize the way that wireless devices can be used for Internet access ­ is a generation ahead in the European Community and we must be watching what is happening there. While we need widespread availability of increased bandwidth for adoption of WAP, CNAV cautioned that "WAP may not scale and make it through the long haul".

In addition to questions from the audience, the panel turned to the audience and asked for their needs. This led to an interesting final discussion about the need for one or many portals, the integration of different portals, and the possibilities of an umbrella portal. Returning to an early point, it was stressed that the users need service modules to plug into portals, that the developers of "back-office" systems must wrap their information in an accessible way. Finally, it seemed a strong consensus that developers of such service systems should not be going into the development of portals but rather should be working on making their systems more accessible to portals ­ whether those systems are library OPACs, electronic reserves, bursar, registrar, transcript, or e-learning.

This was a useful Corporate Presentation with no overt attempt to sell products. It generated useful discussion and more questions than answers, although at this stage this may be what is appropriate.

For a copy of the audio tape (#34) of this session, contact Recorded Resources Corporation (fax 410-969-0920). For further information on KPMG Consulting or to obtain a copy of the White Paper, contact Greg Baroni at gbaroni@kpmg.com; Mike Martys can be reached at martys@cnavsystems.com; contact Blackboard through www.blackboard.com; and Campus Pipeline through www.campus.pipeline.com

Susan S. Lukesh is Associate Provost for Planning and Budget, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York. Susan.S.Lukesh@Hofstra.edu