New uPortal.Cornell brings you the web the way you want it

By Leslie Intemann

In July, Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) launched uPortal.Cornell, a new doorway into Cornell's web presence and the Internet at large that's unique for everyone.

In other words, if you have a Cornell NetID, it's your web, your way. Each person who logs onto uPortal.Cornell (via http://uportal.cornell.edu ) has the option to see exactly what he or she wants to see and to hide what he or she doesn't. Some people want to see the weather and sports scores every day; others want to see the weather and find out who's who in the news at Cornell. To each his own.

"We're delivering the customizability people wanted in Bear Access," said Jon Atherton, CIT's lead for software packaging and delivery. "uPortal.Cornell is different from CUinfo and the Cornell homepage in that it's customizable; it knows who you are when you log in, and it lets you hide content you don't want to see."

The technology makes it possible for faculty, departments, service providers, associations and clubs to set up their own channels in the portal for their particular audiences. Channels available for fall 2002 include CUinfo, Ithaca weather, the Library Gateway, student services and all services offered through Bear Access and Runway. Departments that want help setting up channels and adding content to uPortal.Cornell can contact Atherton at jca8@cornell.edu.

Atherton invites web developers across campus to provide content for uPortal.Cornell. "It doesn't matter what the content is written in," said Atherton. "Java, HTML, ColdFusion, php, ASP or Perl. Frequently, we can take any of that content and make it available through a channel, with minimal modifications."

What's next for uPortal.Cornell? Version 2.1, expected by the end of 2002, will be faster with improved performance on Netscape version 6 and Internet Explorer.

"More content," added Atherton. "That's always our goal. So much valuable content is missed by people outside of a college or division because they simply don't know it's there. This is an opportunity to provide an additional entry point into many of those sites."

uPortal.Cornell relies on uPortal, a free, open-source, sharable portal tool being developed by higher education institutions. uPortal views a higher education portal as a "pocket-sized" version of the campus web presence, but with the addition of customization and community-building features.