[seul-edu] Re: Development of Free Portal Software

[Bruno Vernier <vernier@vc.bc.ca>]

On Wed, May 10, 2000 at 07:08:57PM -0700, Bill Ries-Knight wrote:
> I have been very occupied over the last few months, but here
> is some food for discussion....
> http://chronicle.com/free/2000/05/2000050501t.ht

very interesting... in which I discover my local university and a bunch of
others are writing a generic free portal in java to be used as the unique
portal (entry point, log-in point, centralized and personalized relevant info
center) for educational institutions.

The software will be ready in july they claim and provide no cvs access.  I
do agree that having a single portal per educational institution is the way
to go, avoiding the "free" portals that use advertising is not the way to go
(partly because of the ads, partly because nothing guarantees they will
still be around in a few months/years)

students/staff should only have to manage one password/entry point
per institution.  All relevant/timely data should be synchronized and 
displayed on a single screen if possible. My dream is to see students/staff
login from anywhere and immediately know what they need to do that day, some
idea of progress done so far (bargraphs?), avoid cluttering with
possibilities and show only directly relevant links for the work to be done.

As more and more students use several institutions at the same time, we will
need to setup global educational portals that present all the relevant info
on one screen and provide a single entry/login point

Bruno