Dear list,

Here at the University of Bradford we have now signed off our Proof of 
Concept using Oracle Portal (via the CampusEAI consortium).  I have also 
attended the CampusEAI conference and the JASIG one day conference in 
York.  It seems a good a point as any to stop and reflect on the wider 
issues of my portal project.  From my point of view there is a huge amount 
of activity taking place in all the institutions I've spoken to, 
particularly at the developer end where there seems to be a lot of work 
taking place to increase levels of functionality in our portals, supported 
by our portals, or making the portal sit happily with legacy and future 
enterprise wide systems.  But I am left with a set of nagging issues that 
won’t go away which affect the strategy and scope of my portal project.  
These are, deep breath now ;)

1. Let’s be clear.  A portal is not a fit and forget solution, it is an 
ongoing development project.
2. Who can say that their portal is finished and signed off as a project?
3. At what point does it stop being a project and start becoming part of 
the ongoing business of the university?  How are senior management 
persuaded that this is necessary?
4. How is your portal’s value measured? What are your portal’s success 
metrics?

following on from this.  Which institutions are using evidence based 
metrics to: support the instigation of a portal, been used to prove a 
business case for a portal or been used to quantify or qualify the portals 
continued development?  If so what is being measured? Hits, return visits, 
financial benefit, emails of support, recognition from your institution or 
beyond it, cost savings?
Where is the evidence to demonstrate that your portal has achieved the 
targets it was set?  
Has the current investment such as in Project Management and Developer 
time, been matched by the measured value of a portal implementation?

Based on the above you may not be surprised to know I’ve got a PhD from the 
Johnny Nash School of philosophy, that there will always be more questions 
than answers, but in asking them I’m hoping for two types of response.
Firstly some evidence based research that quantifies the value of a portal.
Secondly to find out that I’m not the only person that has these questions 
and wants to be able to demonstrate to him/herself and their respective 
sceptics that portals add value to the user in HEIs. 

Russell 

Portal Project Manager
MIS
Richmond Building
University of Bradford
Bradford
West Yorkshire
BD7 1DP

Tel: 01274 235968
Mob: 0779 8668 316
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