Meeting Minutes
December 9, 2002

Present: Mac Avery, John Culshaw, Rick Denton, Robert Dixon, Chris Gotski, Andy Marangakis, Malinda Miller-Huey, Barbara Todd, Paula Vaughan, Terry Vaughan

Functional Task Force update
The service provider services list was whittled down to just a few items for the portal prototype/early implementation. These items include: conditional drop/add, waitlist coding, high profile link to academic advising, detailed bill history, and stop information. Discussion around functional services items ensued:

• Conditional drop/add is a change to registration and is not a priority item for the Registrar. It would be more viable for Spring, 2004 (which means it would need to be in place in October, 2003).
• Events Calendar/Activities development should include a representative from Housing Res Life and, possibly, RHA (housing student government).
• SCT is working on PDA, Phone, etc. compatible output and should have it available within one year.

Technical Task Force update
Highlights from the technical task force:

• Single sign on is a big issue (sid/pin vs. identikey vs. account name/pw vs. dept-specific sign-ons, etc).
• PLUS could be published as a channel if the existing architecture is kept. As functions are moved into the portal, they should be decommissioned from PLUS. A small group of PLUS and SIS developers are closely examining the issues involved with ‘portalizing’ each of the PLUS transactions.
• We should use this as an opportunity to establish best practices.
• Time out issues must be considered. Various systems (that will be reached through the portal) have varying time out periods. (i.e., PLUS vs. SCT, SIS, various UMS transactions…)
• n-line transactions should rise to the surface to, perhaps, come to a common framework. Now, on-line campus transactions (books, event tickets, etc.) are handled through a variety of third party vendors.
• Gary and Bob are at JA-SIG, researching a variety of uPortal issues; they’ll report back to us Thursday.

Student Survey
Summarized Survey results were distributed. Briefly:

• 1804 people completed the survey with a fairly even distribution among class levels.
• Add-on Services receiving the most “most interested” votes were: GPA calculator, webmail, purchase books from book store, advisor look-up, and campus event ticket sales.
• Add-on Services receiving the most “not interested” votes were: Housing reservations (probably a reflection of the fact that incoming students were not among the survey respondents), my web links, personal calendaring, parking permit purchases, and more on-line courses.
• Add-on information receiving the most “most interested” votes were: central listing of course web pages, announcements and deadlines, student employment, academic tools, and campus events calendar.
• Add-on information receiving the most “not interested” votes were: instant messaging/chat, sports updates, discussion forums, entertainment listings, national news headlines.
• The services/information currently receiving the most daily use include, in order,: web mail, class web pages, PLUS, Web CT, library, dept pages/news/info, directory, schedule, grades, course info and events.

Discussion re. Prototype
The group came to the following general conclusions:

• Portal offerings will be CU-Boulder specific (vs. city, state, nation, etc.)
• The prototype audience will be enrolled students; it may expand to include confirmed students in November, 2003.
• All functions within PLUS will be provided through some mechanism to be determined.
• The portal must also take Total Comm provisioning into consideration.
• All CU Express student-life content-oriented information must be reviewed and considered for inclusion.
• Use caution when considering inclusion of registration-oriented tasks (schedule, grades, etc.). They must work for Fall and information and instructions sent to students prior to Fall must be accurate.

Specific recommendations for inclusion in the early implementation/prototype include:

• Web Mail
• PLUS
• GPA calculator
  • Now offered by Arts & Sciences, Electrical Engineering, and in development at Web Communications.
  • Should include graded courses, with “what if” capabilities for current courses and registered-for next semester courses.
• Central Course Repository/Area
  • Central site for course web pages – involves huge process development effort but we should start this effort now to capitalize upon the portal project momentum, even if delivery of this site is not possible by Fall, 2003.
  • Course descriptions
  • Catalog
  • Schedule planner
• Department home pages
• Professor home pages
• Advising – including
  • link to A&S Advising,
  • advisor information,
  • advising appointment capability,
  • provide for all colleges.
• Library (content is easy; records and transactions would be more difficult).
• Announcements and deadlines
  • Allow personalization to designate which announcements would be received by the student.
  • Policy issues re. Mandatory announcement, department buy-in for push, selective push.
  • Consider adapting buff bulletin and ememo to portal framework.
• Events
  • Aggregating/publishing all campus events involves significant policy and process considerations.
  • Requires SunOne calendar research for functional applicability and technical feasibility.
  • Perhaps combine the analysis of events process development with announcements process analysis.
• Personal calendar
  • Support issues re. deploying SunOne calendar to student body.
  • Not high on student survey, but could make channel available (if it’s easy) for students who do want to use it.
• Student employment (Financial Aid and Career Services)
• Support links/information (technical, general)
• Weather
• Campus News
• Maps
• Search (research improved search tools)
• Directory
• Prepared links (colleges, schools, student services)
• Academic tools (CU Express already has links)
• Bookmarks (if easy – not high on student survey)

Next Meeting
December 12, 3-5 p.m., Telecomm 215.
Agenda:
I. uPortal update from Bob and Gary
II. Refine the list of items to be included in the prototype/early implementation