Meeting Minutes
April 16, 2003

Present: Mac Avery, Jeff Buffington, Rick Denton, Bob Fryberger, Malinda Miller-Huey, Carol Mehls (Continuing Ed), John Montgomery (Continuing Ed), Gary Pollock, Chris Solis (Continuing Ed), Bonnie Templeton, Barbara Todd, Paula Vaughan, Terry Vaughan

Subteam Updates

Tech

• Look and feel is progressing very well (very close to completion).
• Hardware is in; one of the eight machines is up and running. By next Tuesday, at least one additional machine will be up to test load balancing.
• Ready (or almost ready) for testing: weather/forecast, webcam, search, bookmarks, student services links, academic links, financial links, PLUS. Also completed: test dataset, course load process, outer frame control.
• In process: survey, Ralphie’s Guide, news, course lookup, student course schedule display, announcements, gpa calculator, student employment, student profile, advising links.

Testing

• Next Portal Test Sub-team meeting: April 22nd, 3:30 p.m., Portal Project Room, Computing Center 124.
• PLUS testing will focus on the integration of PLUS with the portal vs. PLUS-specific functional testing. Gary and Paula have drafted a PLUS-Portal test plan and PLUS testing will get underway very soon.
• Shakedown test: test audience selection will probably rely upon self-selection through an announcement on PLUS.

Announcements

• Next Announcements Sub-team meeting tbd. Will be soon to discuss specifics re. topics and process.
• Discussed centralized review vs. delegated authorization of announcement creation. Core recommends using the prototype phase to try delegated authorization to more than one group to test impact and process.
• Portal Announcements will also be discussed this afternoon at the Electronic Communications Committee meeting.

Deployment

• Next Deployment Sub-team meeting: Monday, April 21st, 10 a.m., Telecomm 215.
• Report will be sent to Core after the meeting.

Outreach

• Next Outreach Sub-team meeting: Wednesday, April 23rd, 10 a.m, Stadium 367 to discuss implementation of the Communication Plan.
• Communication Plan/Matrix was distributed and is also available on the teamsite.
• Action Item: Review communication plan/matrix; send comments to Paula asap.

Various Issues

Portal Tab/Channel Lockdown

• Original plan to lockdown all but the “My Page” tab leaving the “My Page” tab open for personalization has run into significant technical challenges. The two viable options now appear to be either 1) leave everything open for personalization, or 2) lock everything down.
• Pros/Cons of opening everything up vs. locking everything down:
  Open: Students will be able to choose to display just those things of interest to them, when and where they want to see them (one of the characteristics that makes a portal framework so compelling for its audiences). Adding new features is done through advertising the feature and allowing the student to subscribe to it.
  Lockdown: Can guarantee what will be displayed to the student but loses a significant component of a portal’s personalization and, thus, its appeal. Adding new features requires rebuilding each person’s instance of the portal.
• If open option is chosen, we should investigate the possibility of sending a message to those students who have not subscribed to announcements (the channel that, if we had a choice, we would require to be displayed).
• If possible, we should provide the capability for someone to choose to return to the default configuration (that would include those channels we would most like students to subscribe to).
• Misc. comments:
  • It would be nice if announcements were forced; but personalization is more important.
  • If the information is good, people will keep the channel.
  • If we start with lock down, students would get used to those channels, then we could open everything up.
  • Keep in mind that, after initial implementation, there is constant turnover in the student population; we would not be able to start with one scenario (lockdown) and move to another scenario (open) with each batch of students.
  • In favor of starting with lock down then opening up.
  • Maybe we could test the two-phased approach in the summer prototype.
  • We should ask “what will entice students” – the answer is a personalized site.
  • This is an ownership issue: Students are who we are building for; we should reflect what is important to them.
  • Could we display a pop-up warning when a student unsubscribes to announcements?
  • The total quantity of potential channels will become a real estate issue; we have to allow a subset to be chosen.
• Straw Vote for open vs. lockdown vs. locked-then-open: 8 in favor of open; 0 for lockdown; 4 for locked-then-open.

Timeline

• We are moving into a very intense phase (testing, deployment prep, shakedown, prototype release, lots of outreach throughout).
• Action Item: let Paula know by the end of the week (4/18), what your availability is for tasks/time.

Portal Use Policy

• The question: should we require that web-based student services be offered through the portal?
• Discussion:
  • If the population served includes anyone other than currently registered students, then it has to be available outside the portal.
  • We must consider cost ramifications (development specifically for the portal).
  • We should encourage people to join the portal vs. mandating participation.
  • We should look at groups of related services to be incorporated into the portal.
• Action Item: Send Paula your thoughts and suggestions on this issue by April 25th.

Governance

• The question: how should on-going governance (policy, enhancement prioritization, etc.) be handled?
• There used to be a Web Student Services Committee; perhaps we should start there.
• Action Item: Send Paula your thoughts and suggestions on this issue by April 25th.

Next Meeting: May 7th, 3:30 p.m., Telecomm 215