1	Bringing It Together With Portals
2	What is a Portal? Commonly referred to as simply a portal, a Web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and on-line shopping malls. The first Web portals were online services, such as AOL, that provided access to the Web, but by now most of the traditional search engines have transformed themselves into Web portals to attract and keep a larger audience. From Webopedia.com
3	Faculty Portal Reasons for creating a faculty portal Resources were available, but not fully used because people didn’t remember them or couldn’t find them. Resources were emailed to all faculty, clogging email system with lots of attachments. Frustration of fielding repeated requests for the same information.
4	Faculty Portal Goals for the faculty portal Create a “one stop shop” for faculty and staff with all the information that they needed. Train the faculty to look to the portal for resources first. Eliminate excessive printing, copying, and administrative time.
5	Faculty Portal Elements Administrative Forms Calendars Financial and leave forms Reservation forms Links to Essential Services Email Intranet Equipment sign-ups Instructional Links and Resources Technology tips, guidelines, and instructions
6	Faculty Portal
7	Faculty Portal Outcomes After 1 year, faculty began to fully utilize the portal Redesigns to organize information as portal grows will be necessary Now hard to keep up with requests to add information! Sharing responsibility for some content with Assistant Dean of Academics
8	Student Portal Motivations for a Student Portal Students and teachers have very different needs and can’t be served by the same portal. Students may need help selecting resources. Web Design students need real-world experience in creating and maintaining a large web site for a “client.”
9	Student Portal Goals for the Student Portal Serve boarding students by providing information about dining, arts, entertainment, and transportation in the Raleigh area. Serve all students by providing teacher-approved academic resources, student life information and links to news, weather, email, intranet, and relevant parts of the official Saint Mary’s School website.
10	Student Portal Goals for Design Students Learning to plan, organize, and design a large website, sharing responsibility for content and the design process. Assess the needs of a “client” and work with them to get needed information in a timely manner. Work in a committee to make decisions about the site. Learn more about CSS, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, and more.
11	Student Portal The creation process Without being told why, students brainstormed about what would be on a website that had “everything a Saint Mary’s Student needs” They realized that they would be creating this site and got pretty stressed out. So, we organized the site together.
12	Student Portal
13	Student Portal Gathering information The five students were each assigned to a core academic content area with the following assignment: You should email the teachers from your assigned department. You need to politely explain why you are emailing them and ask them to email you resources that they think students should find helpful. You may also want them to let you know if they would only recommend this resource for certain grades or classes. Finally, being extremely polite and professional, you should request that they respond prior to leaving for the long weekend that starts February 12. You should be as professional as possible in these messages.
14	Student Portal Gathering information Students were assigned in pairs to investigate categories of Raleigh information including Dining, Transportation, Movies, Attractions, and Shopping They were also assigned one of the following area: college info, library resources, activities/clubs, athletics and arts and asked to email the faculty in charge of those areas.
15	Student Portal Designing the Site Student produced pages for their assignment using a format we had agreed on in class. We began the “great color debate” which caused a lot of controversy among our class and we finally agreed to have a survey and let the students vote. (http://faculty.saint-marys.edu/jwsepke/old/css/default.htm)
16	Student Portal Finishing Touches Following up with teachers Checking links and touching up designs Advertising to students Adding special features: Lost and found/Classified Google Search Feedback Survey Streaming video Fireworks
17	Student Portal
18	Student Portal Outcomes Portal must be maintained. Current students can do this a a part of the class and past student earn community service hours. Hasn’t moved into heavy use, but has only been available for a limited time.
19	Creating Portals Lessons Learned Portals can make people more independent in their use of electronic resources. It can take awhile for people to become accustomed to using a portal. As use increases, be prepared to invest time in updates and redesigns. Look for a way to share the responsibility.
20	Creating Portals Lessons Learned Student designers may not be ready to deal with the complete creative control as a group. Limiting options may reduce stress for students. Be prepared for student designers to be frustrated with each other, teachers who don’t answer email, and maybe even you.
21	Portals Lessons Learned You can save time, paper, server space and your sanity by creating portals to serve your teacher and students. Portals are worth the investment!