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Bill, We do what you are proposing, we have sections of the homepage that are only visible from within the institution. We can put on our homepage news items that only appear internally, events likewise and also linked images to help people find internal content. We are in the process of starting a student and staff portal project and this will to some extent remove the necessity for such doing this on the homepage, although we still think we will need some degree of internal notices on our homepage. Cheers, Gareth -- Gareth McAleese Web and New Media Manager www.ulster.ac.uk > -----Original Message----- > From: Bill Edmunds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: 16 June 2004 08:48 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Serving different Uni homepages > > Hi > > We are currently having a debate about the value of serving a > different University home page depending on location. Hence, > all external users would receive information of general > interest, whereas internal users would receive a page more > relevant for their needs. Such an approach is achievable with > mechanisms in Apache. It would be expected that all users > could still access both sets of pages via a single click anyway. > > I hasten to add that this is not a debate about the value of > having an intranet/extranet web site or hiding internal web > pages from external users, but more about whether these > should be served directly by the University home page itself. > I see the following advantages and disadvantages... > > Advantages... > > 1. The University home page delivered is more relevant to the > prospective user. > > Disadvantages... > > 1. May lead to some confusion when your internal users use an > external ISP from home. > > 2. May lead to some issues when indexing the University web > site internally. > > 3. Internal users choose their home page or have it chosen > for them as part of a managed interface anyway. > > 4. Increases the server processing requirement for what is > probably the most commonly accessed web page, although these > effects are probably negligible. > > Personally, I believe that the web works well enough with > hyperlinks and > that this sort of approach is unnecessary. However, I would > be interested in gauging other opinions on the subject. > > Bill Edmunds, IT Services, University of Exeter >