James Madison University

OneWeb Project

Portal Project FAQs

Please select a category and a FAQ:

Portal Basics:

What is a portal?

A portal is a complex web based system that creates a single personalized and customizable entry point for an individual users web experience with a companies or organizations web presence. It combines many pieces of content into an integrated, consistent, experience for the end-user. Examples of portals would be my.yahoo.com, Amazon.com, and other online merchants.

Why is JMU building a portal?

See the JMU Portal Vision Document to learn why JMU is building a portal -http://www.jmu.edu/oneweb/wm_library/WebCommonMessage.ppt

What are other schools doing with portals?

Portals in higher education have been used to provide specialized information for faculty, staff, students, alumni and other constituents. For example, MyUCLA provides access to course information for registered students, while the University of Washington’s portal provides a personal calendar for staff. The University of Wisconsin offers email access for all portal users and access to an advising system for faculty.

Will the new JMU portal be optional or mandatory for faculty use?

It will be optional. We hope that faculty will see the value and opt to participate on the basis of the benefits associated with the new approach.

Where do I go to find out more about the JMU portal?

Visit the OneWeb Project Site - http://www.jmu.edu/oneweb.

Portal Project Plan:

What are the first steps that JMU has taken to implement a campus portal?

In September 2004, JMU launched an effort to bring next-generation publishing and presentation tools to its Web site. A vision document was created to guide the process and, in November, the university issued a request for proposals. The CampusEAI/Oracle decision was reached after an intensive evaluation process that included on-site vendor presentations to JMU faculty, staff, and students. Several committees and work teams have been established to guide the full implementation of the new infrastructure, which will likely require three to five years.

What is Campus EAI and how will it benefit JMU?

Led by over 140 primary, secondary, and postsecondary education institutions in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, the CampusEAI Consortium is a Cleveland-based, non-profit organization dedicated to helping its members reduce the cost and increase the speed of providing information technology services by facilitating the development, exchange, delivery, and support of community-source software and digital content.

What is Oracle?

Oracle is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest independent software company. The California-based company's recent acquisition of PeopleSoft -- JMU's vendor for its Enterprise Resource Planning systems (student administration, finance, human resources) -- should aid system integration in the future.

What is Oracle Application Server 10g?

Oracle Application Server 10g offers a comprehensive solution for developing, integrating, and deploying applications, portals, and Web services. Based on a powerful and scalable J2EE server, Oracle Application Server 10g provides complete business integration and business intelligence suites, and best-of-breed portal software.

How is the portal implementation process being organized at JMU?

Several committees and work teams have been established to guide the full implementation of the new infrastructure, which will likely require three to five years. Visit the project Web site (http://www.jmu.edu/oneweb) for team information and updates on the project.

How are portal priorities being established?

Several committees and work teams have been established to guide the full implementation of the new infrastructure. A list of the teams and their objectives may be found on the following site - http://www.jmu.edu/oneweb/teams.shtml

How will the portal affect web publishing at JMU?

The details of web publishing are still being worked out. However, we anticipate the following:

- Users will be able to create and edit web pages with standard word processor tools, making it possible to change text and style in a familiar environment.
- High-end publishers will have access to source code and/or APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to create or link to their own interactive Web applications.
- Publishers will be able to subscribe to shared content from another department’s site, eliminating duplication of information - changes to the original text would automatically update the subscribing site.
- Publishers will be able to create content and schedule its availability well in advance and specify when out-of-date content should be automatically removed or archived.
- Publishers will easily use CMS tools to integrate JMU’s branding/identity system and ensure consistency with JMU Web site navigation and search systems.

What is the anticipated timetable for portal implementation?

This is a long term, ongoing project that will take a few years to complete. We hope to implement the first production portal in August 2006.

What will be included in the JMU portal?

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds from the Main JMU web site will be available as news items in the portal. A search portlet with the ability to search the JMU Google search and People directory will be available. A feedback form will be available to solicit your input. Other items will be added during the preview cycle. A complete list of functionality has not been finalized at this time.

Who will be able to use the JMU portal?

During the initial preview releases, only current JMU Faculty, Staff, and Students will be able to preview the portal on-campus only.

How can I volunteer to participate in the portal project?

Contact the Portal Steering Committee - http://www.jmu.edu/oneweb/feedback.shtml

How do I make suggestions about the portal?

Contact the Portal Steering Committee - http://www.jmu.edu/oneweb/feedback.shtml

Portal Features:

Will I be able to personalize my view of the JMU web?

Eventually the plan is to allow individual users of the Portal to customize certain portions of their web experience within the portal. Certain sections of your page will be customizable as will certain portlets to allow you to tailor your experience to your preferences. This customization capability may be limited in preview releases.

How will an advising portal help students and academic advisers?

Delivering quality academic advising to students is a high priority for JMU. In the university’s current web structure, important advising information is found in multiple departments, programs, offices, and divisions across the university making if difficult for students and advisers to locate all of the information needed to make important academic decisions. The portal addresses this problem by pushing information to students and advisers based upon their individual roles and attributes such as a student’s major, minor, academic progress, and career interests. In this way, advising information can be tailored to individual students and advisers in a more unified and consistent manner.

A university task force has been identified to design the advising portal and feedback has been collected from students and faculty about what is important to them as part of an advising portal. Because the development of the advising portal is an on-going process, initial enhancements will be released in e-campus while other features of the advising portal continue to be developed.

Content Management:

What is a Content Management System (CMS)?

A content management system (CMS) is a computer software system for organizing and facilitating collaborative creation of documents and other content. A content management system is frequently a web application used for managing websites and web content.

What is a Web Manager?

Web Manager is a JMU-produced content manager. It provides an easy interface for creating and maintaining consistent JMU Web sites. JMU Web publishers can produce up-to-date, professionally-designed Web sites with little or no knowledge of HTML using nothing more than the software already on their desktops. Web Manager offers Web page templates to give you a uniform look and help you organized your information. It uses University styles and standards and 508 accessibility guidelines.

How will the portal project affect Web Manager users?

Web Manager users will get a preview of the publishing tool that will be common to the Portal and Web Manager when Web Manager II is released. The portal and Web Manager II will be designed to use a common editor for publishing content. This editor will be a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor that resembles Microsoft Words toolbar with B for bold, I for italic and other 'buttons' that will help simplify the publishing process for publishers who only need to add simple content and don't want or need to know HTML code.

How will the JMU Portal affect departmental web sites?

There are work groups looking at many different aspects of this project. It is too soon to tell how it will affect web publishing as we know it at JMU. We'll be looking for your input as we study the issues.

What should we be doing with our current web sites to prepare for the new infrastructure?

Think about your content and how it is organized. You may want to start to classify information based on the intended audience (i.e., student, faculty/staff, parents, etc.). Identify information that is redundant, out-of-date or rarely used.

Directory Services:

What is a directory service?

A directory service, which is very similar to a database, stores configuration, authentication, and authorization data for use by other applications. By using a central directory, multiple applications can make decisions using the same data. It may hold almost any type of data needed by an application but commonly used items such as information about people, roles, groups, and computers are almost universal.

Why is the campus directory an important part of the portal project?

The campus directory will hold configuration, authentication, and authorization information that will be used by the portal to make decisions about visitors' roles and the access and views they should have.

What is LDAP?

LDAP usually refers to a standards based directory used to store configuration, authentication, and authorization data for use by other applications. By using a central directory, multiple applications can make decisions using the same data.

What is the Oracle Internet Directory (OID)?

Oracle Internet directory (OID) is an LDAP compliant directory service produced by Oracle Corporation which is used by many Oracle applications. Generally, any application that is compatible with an "LDAP directory" can use OID.

James Madison University

Publisher: OneWeb Steering Committee
For Information Contact: OneWeb Steering Committee

James Madison University

(540) 568-3720

Last Modified: 5/13/2008
Privacy Statement