PEPC 2003 Birds of a Feather Session UoB Portal Project

1. PEPC 2003 Birds of a Feather SessionUoB Portal Project Starting Line Strategies David R Supple University of Birmingham University of Birmingham

2. Birds of a Feather Session Overview • Look at some of the work UoB focused on as prerequisites to its Portal strategy • Look at some of UoB’s key internal and external drivers • Examine some common technology drivers • Examine common University content structures • Look at some of the benefits of Portal delivery • How we justified the project • Data integration • Process engineering • How we costed the project – tech and HR • Examine our planning and implementation structures and timetable University of Birmingham

3. Birmingham’s Path of Prerequisites • Web Strategy • Content Strategy • Portal Strategy University of Birmingham

4. Key Strategic Prerequisites to Avoid Failure • 20-30% of portals fail predominantly due to “empty portal” syndrome: source Gartner 2003 • Emptiness also extends to relevance: irrelevant content may as well not exist • Relevance requires engagement of all aspects of University life • If you have no relevant web relationships, why will you have relevant portal relationships? University of Birmingham

5. UoB Web Strategy: Gaining the high ground. Strategies to take control • Birmingham’s External Strategic Web Review c1999: • Developing the product • Developing the service • “Selling the solution” • Developing an edge to edge strategy for web • Taking leadership • Balancing user focus with provider driven technology • Developing best of breed “Ally” sites • Developing a community • Leveraging legal and commercial issues to tackle difficult “sales” University of Birmingham

6. Levelling the ground: Content Strategy • Stop playing “catch-up” • Develop strategies that tame the big picture: Birmingham’s Web Enabled Campus Vision • Understand common needs in content generation areas • Lack of time • Lack of funding • Ease of technology rather than content focus • Develop your strategies around content value • Prioritize and protect your key content assets • Integrate content focused training into all your technical training. University of Birmingham

7. Rebuilding the ground: Portal Strategy • Taking the content further – developing more relationships with content creators and consumers • A focus on business process review, making the business an e-business from the ground up • Data simplification not just integration • Technologies to remove data noise through personalised environments • Integrated e-learning environment to deliver MLE University of Birmingham

8. MLE – JISC Definition University of Birmingham

9. Key External Drivers for Portal • Increased competition within HEI sector • Increase in University enterprise activity • Changes in student profiles – time and geographical access • Increased focus on accessibility • Portals to be offered by many if not most HEI’s • Enterprise vendorware will provide web front ends • Portal interoperability drivers – interaction with key external agencies through Portal University of Birmingham

10. Key Internal Drivers for Portal • Increasing academic time and workload burden • Research • Teaching and Learning • Marketing • Quality Assurance • Commercial context • Administrative efficiency gains University of Birmingham

11. Technology Drivers for Portal Development University of Birmingham

12. Portal Information Structure Development University of Birmingham

13. Portal Module Architecture University of Birmingham

14. CMS as a Strategic Content Driver University of Birmingham

15. Many Benefits of Portal • Teaching and Learning and Administration: • A single location to register for courses, view and choose modules • A single location to access course material round the clock • Consolidated financial relationship • Added value online information to help tutors • Improved access to interact with student data • Facility to integrate custom school data requirements into portal • Building community and relationships with studentsand other users • Currently 40 planned portal services for students and staff including WebCT as the VLE University of Birmingham

16. Portal: Content Management key to Personalised Delivery • Provision of personalised content streams is a cornerstone of Portal technology – build relevance to users • But not at the expense of increasing: • Costs per digital asset • Administrative burden • Academic Burden • Data barricades • You must tackle the demons of managing: • Content ownership • Content Classification University of Birmingham

17. Justifying the change: engagement, savings and promises University of Birmingham

18. Indirect Justifications: non financial • Service, Service, Service: Customer Expectations • Ability to re-task data • Ability to develop data relationships with 3rd parties: • HEFCE? • HESA? • Research Councils? • Regional Agencies? • UCAS? • Service, Service, Service: Customer Expectations University of Birmingham

19. IRR Calculations: Justifying the solution • UoB Lifecycle costing approach • Focus on 3 key administrative services • Module registration savings • Student record management savings • Student Timetabling • and content publication: • 500+ content authors • 300+ web servers • Reduction in software • Capitalisation of multi-use assets • IRR of 11+% as a Student and Staff Portal / CMS enabled environment University of Birmingham

20. Data Integration Strategy: Reducing Data TCO • Sure the technology can integrate, but… • Wouldn’t it make sense if we changed the business processes first rather than rely upon the technology to bridge them? • Data Range principle to harness central and added value data • Simplify the data, make your portal interoperable University of Birmingham

21. How? Process Re-engineering • Strategy of re-processing portal systems • New service delivery, new administrative cost saving processes • Working with key areas – e.g. Academic Office and Process Champions • Tools and skill set provided by Process Re-engineering Specialist • Modular approach to match modular Portal nature • Data unification principle to draw school specific data into portal University of Birmingham

22. Process Champion Work Methodology University of Birmingham

23. UoB Portal Project Interaction • Data set mapping with central and distributed data – ‘Data Range’ • Portal service planning through project board and school / dept. interaction. • Process review mechanisms to simplify administrative workflow developed with users • “Town hall” meetings to engage and inform users • Focus groups of end users for functionality and interfaces: • Students • Staff • Alumni etc. • Interactive Portal and e-Strategy planning website University of Birmingham

24. Iterative CommunicationsFocus+ Ongoing interaction with School Managers and Web Coordinators based around core Focus Group findings University of Birmingham

25. UoB InteractionProject Planning Mechanism , Head of School Academic Representation University of Birmingham

26. Proposedphased roll out over 2 year cycleBudget’s commencefor Phase 1August 2003 University of Birmingham

27. Questions University of Birmingham