Why have a portal at Nottingham?

Introduction	E-Learning	Structured Data Services	The University Website
School Intranets	The changing web	A virtuous circle	Living in harmony with existing services

The University Website

The University has for a long time recognised the strategic importance of its website. The website has served the needs of many different groups such as students, staff, alumni, visitors, prospective students and other universities. There is a growing need for specialisation, as it becomes impossible to meet these disparate requirements. A decision was taken by the Web Steering Group to align the main Nottingham site to be externally facing, and to create a new site aimed specifically at students (and another for staff).

But a single gateway page for students is an inadequate response to the overwhelming mass of information. Personalisation allows considerably more targeting, and the individual student has the final say in how the pages are constructed to meet their needs. Jacobsen [2] likens the web to a software model of the university, providing infinite views, and suggests the need for a multifaceted lens, providing a unique view for each user.

2. Jacobsen, Carl, "Institutional Information Portals," EDUCAUSE Review, July/August 2000, pp. 58-59 http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm00/articles004/horizons.pdf.

http://www.eis.nottingham.ac.uk/compass/

eis