Portals, uportal, and JA-SIG Justin Tilton, Chief Executive Officer instructional media + magic, inc. at the Campus Pipeline Pillar Institution Program Meeting Pepperdine University November 15, 2001
The aggregation game
Some Commercial Portals Sun Microsystems (iplanet) Epicentric (Foundation Server) Oracle (Application Server Portal) IBM (WebSphere Portal/Jetspeed) Computer Associates (Jasmine ii) Microsoft (SharePoint Portal Server) Sequoia (XML Portal Server) PeopleSoft (PeopleSoft Portal) Citrix (XPS) Sybase (Enterprise Portal)
Common goals/different technologies System Integration & Consistency Single Sign-on & Security Personalization Collaboration Component Reuse Task Management & Workflow Internationalization Customer Relationship Management Syndicated Content Subscription
Higher Education Most of these features apply to Higher Education System Integration & Consistency Single Sign-on & Security Personalization Collaboration Component Reuse Task Management & Workflow Internationalization Customer Relationship Management Syndicated Content Subscription uportal is bridging the gap between corporate portals and the needs of Higher Education Institutions
The higher education web world Administration Library Instruction Research
Students expectations shaped by... Their experience applying for admissions and financial aid Their use of financial services portals Their use of the Internet Their life in a real-time, information rich environment
Students now expect... Customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week Complete information from a single source Information by Web, e-mail, telephone, facsimile, and wireless devices response time of 15 seconds for telephone, 10 seconds for Web, and 2 hours for e-mail and facsimile access to a complete customer history
Students prefer Single sign-on even if that means revealing personal logons and passwords [aggregation/credential caching] Selection of content [channels] and layout [user profile] Common channel navigation and icons [consistent look & feel]
JA-SIG Java In Administration Special Interest Group www.jasig.org Conferences biannually Clearing house https://www.mis4.udel.edu/jasigch/ Collaborative projects
Mission The Java in Administration Special Interest Group (JA-SIG) is an independent organization designed to increase the flow of information between educational institutions and companies involved in the development of administrative applications using Java technology. Today, with the benefit of object oriented technology and Java, we have a great opportunity in higher education to do things better as colleagues. The purpose of JA-SIG is, first, to share our experiences as we build applications with Java, and second, to develop a common infrastructure upon which we can build shareable components. We welcome the participation of both educational institutions and commercial enterprises in this effort.
Goals The JA-SIG's goals are to: Nurture communication of best practices, new technologies, and innovative methodologies and projects related to Java Increase peer review, collaboration, and group discussion related to institutiondeveloped Java administrative applications Broaden Java technology cross-fertilization between firms and schools on both a functional and geographic basis
Activities The JA-SIG membership is engaged in three activities. 1. Sponsorship of a twice-annual conference. 2. The JA-SIG Clearinghouse - a place on the Web to facilitate the sharing of Java components. 3. Development of a free, open source, open standard portal for higher education: uportal.
JA-SIG Appalachian State Princeton UBC Delaware Florida State Cornell UCSD Boston Georgetown USC Mississippi State Brown Yale Hawaii Columbia U Washington Minnesota UT Austin UCLA + ~300 more
CalPoly San Luis Obispo
University of British Columbia
Denison University
University of California, Irvine
University of Delaware
University of Delaware
What is uportal? Enterprise portal Framework for presenting aggregated content (channels) Personalization Role-based access control Open source, collaborative effort Java web application
uportal Interfaces Authentication Proving your identity Authorization Deciding what you can access Directory services Such as populating EduPerson User preferences Profiles, structure, themes, skins Channel information Availability and configuration
What is a Channel? Displays content XML feeds Rich Site Summary (RSS) Web services Legacy systems Interactive applications Bookmarks Email, chat, list serves The Meteor Project
The Meteor channel
Architecture of uportal
What s new in 2.0? Abstraction of layout Structure/theme transformations Standard channel events Standard CSS classes More flexible publish/subscribe User profile management JNDI lookup service WebProxy channel
In progress Performance optimization Single-JVM Distributed setups Authorization checks User Identification (EduPerson) Tree layout UP module More content!
Basic Architecture
Basic Architecture Permissions authentication User preferences Channel registry Other uportal Data iplanet LDAP Oracle db2 mysql
Channel Elementary unit of presentation, defined by the IChannel interface User Interaction External Information Set Runtime Data () IChannel Channel Content (Presentation) Render XML ()
IChannel content must Be well-formed XML such as XHTML, RSS, SVG, SMIL, or a SOAP message (HTML is not well formed XML) Rendered by an XSL transformation using an XSL stylesheet
Framework Organization User Interaction Presentation uportal Framework Channel Channel Channel
User Layout User Layout is an abstract structure defining the overall content available to the user userlayout is a tree structure consisting of folders and channels, the later always being the leaf nodes
User Layout User Layout Folder Folder Channel Channel Channel Channel Folder Channel Folder Folder Channel Channel Folder Channel
Structure Transformation User Layout Folder Folder Folder Folder Channel Folder Channel Channel Channel Channel Channel Folder Channel Channel User Layout Tab Column Channel Channel Channel Channel Channel Tab Column Channel Channel Tab Channel
Theme Transformation Column Channel Dictionary.com Tab Jim Smith Channel Bookmarks Column User Layout Channel Cartoon Tab Financial Aid Channel Channel Tab Library Channel
Compiling the Presentation userlayout Channels XSLT Structure transformation setruntimedata() renderxml() XSLT structuredlayout Theme transformation HTML, WML VoiceML...
Content Transformation XML Stylesheet XSLT Processor XHTML: Web Browser HTML: PDA WML: Cell Phone
Flexible Layouts Structures Tab/ column Tree / column Themes Multi-column Multi-row Skins Matrix, Java
Multiple Target Devices
Tab / Column Layout
Tree / Column Layout
Theme: java
Theme: imm
Theme: matrix
Architectural Features Extensive user customization Inter-channel communications Channel services Normalized database schema Profiles (multiple device management) Layout-specific preferences channels JNDI backbone
User preferences Portal=rendering+customization User Preferences Channel Swappable layout and preference management modules Profile management module Tab-column specific UP module Skin Selection
User Preferences
Publish/Subscribe Channel publishing document Channel parameters Default values Modification permissions Descriptions Publish/Subscribe steps Step sequence Instructions, help Flexible channel publishing
Channel Types
Channel Settings
Channel Controls
Channel Classification
Web services as an architecture
A Web service is XML business messages using ebxml/soap compliant data transport rendered using XSL transformations for a remotely authenticated user
Web services architecture is XML tagged data content extensible Markup Language ebxml/soap data transport Simple Object Access Protocol XSL transformations for presentation extensible stylesheet language and now UDDI/WSDL directory services Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration, and Web Services Description Language
The Meteor Channel, an example of Web services
Meteor in a nutshell DETAIL Value Entered Value Entered $X,XXX.XX $X,XXX.XX $XXX.XX $X,XXX.XX $XXX.XX $XXX.XX $XX,XXX.XX Value Entered $X,XXX.XX $X,XXX.XX $XXX.XX $X,XXX.XX $XXX.XX $XXX.XX $XX,XXX.XX UDDI XML Lender
Diagram of Meteor Concept Student Web Services HTML Access Provider Meteor XML Data Provider
As implemented... Web Services Secure HTML Standard Browser uportal Meteor SOAP Meteor Secure XML Meteor SOAP Database
Data from multiple sources, locations
Meteor Channel in the uportal
The End Justin E. Tilton jet@immagic.com www.immagic.com