[Sigia-l] University intranets

[James Melzer]

Another fundamental issue at many universities is the unbelievable
diversity of their populations. The relationship of various
constituencies to enterprise systems is often unpredictable. For
instance, at a big state school you have faculty, adjunct and guest
faculty, staff, grantees, researchers, graduate students,
undergraduate students, continuing education students, visitors,
applicants, parents, and so on and so forth.  Your portal product
might be able to handle that kind of diversity (emphasis on might) but
the user model as it was implemented might not be up to the task. The
result is people getting irrelevant information or just not being able
to use the portal at all.

I worked at the web shop for a big school for almost four years, and I
can tell you that the crushing variety of salient user roles is a
major issue.

~ James

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 07:59:24 +1100, Donna Maurer <donna at maadmob.net> wrote:
> I think that part of the rationale is that many students and some staff
> use the intranet/site from locations off campus. I certainly never use
> my university site from campus, and my students do a lot of their work
> from outside campus as well. But my universities don't have separate
> 'intranets' - it is just the uni site.
> 
> One of the biggest tensions I have seen with the website/intranet model
> within organisations is that staff don't know what is on each site, and
> it is not sensible to duplicate it. One big site is useful sometimes (or
> search that covers both at least)
> 
> Donna
> 
> Justine Sanderson wrote:
> 
> > My questions are as follows:
> >
> > 1. Does anyone know the background or rationale to the above university
> > model?
> > 2. Has anyone struggled with this model when developing university
> > intranets? What are the pros and cons?
> > 3. Has anyone tried to change this model, i.e develop an university
> > intranet distinct from the university's website? Is the cultural change
> > required too big? What are the issues?
> >
> > Your thoughts greatly appreciated.
> >
> 
> --
> Donna Maurer
> e: donna at maadmob.net
> blog: http://maadmob.net/donna/blog/
> AIM: maadmob
> 
> 
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-- 
James Melzer

"Choice, the problem is choice."
    - Neo [The Matrix Revolutions]