The Robert Gordon University IT SERVICES Project Planning

Proposal to ITSG

Student Portal

Version: Date:

4.0 12-Jan-04

Student Portal - PROPOSAL

1 Background

Most Universities have now either implemented or are considering the implementation of a Student Portal. There is a broad range of technology in use, such as: U-Portal or Campus Pipeline, SITS EVision, Black Board, Oracle Portal and bespoke developments. A portal is simply a way of exploiting web technology to provide a method of access to diverse systems and information through a single path or gateway that is personalised and customisable by users. The Department of E-Learning has been very successful in developing two award winning E-learning environments in the RGUiNet and the Virtual Campus and IT Services has delivered an excellent University Web Site, including some intranet facilities. We now want to build on these successes and deliver a Student Portal that provides a one-stop shop for all services and facilities required by students. This is a view supported by the outcomes of Student Portal Workshops with Students and Staff. These Workshops have identified high level requirements in all area of the Student Portal. These have been grouped as follows: Learning, Records and Admin, Support Services, Email and Interaction and Social. Clearly, the Department of E-Learning will be taking ownership of the Learning area and there are on-going discussions to try to identify the level of integration that can be achieved. This ranges from a link to the existing E-Learning environments, a link to a re-developed E-Learning environment or complete integration so that E-Learning is an integral part of the Student Portal. As a starting point, IT Services have developed a prototype from the output of the Workshops and informal discussions with likely Stakeholders who did not attend the Workshops. The Web Strategy Group has also been kept informed and the final design will comply with the University Branding Strategy. Investigations into technology have shown that the Student Portal could be developed using Oracle Portal or could be developed using Cold Fusion as for the University Web Site, the Virtual Campus and the RGUiNets. Costs have been estimated for both options, investigations have been done to establish whether Cold Fusion can provide the same functionality as Oracle Portal is known to provide and a risks and benefits of both options are documented in section 6. In addition, there are requirements of the Student Portal that look like they could be provided by the SITS E-Vision Portal that is to be implemented as part of the CAMS Project and further investigations are on-going to see what use could be made of this to ensure that the Student Portal makes the best use of technology already available where appropriate to reduce costs. It is anticipated that delivery of a Student Portal will increase student satisfaction and enhance the Student Journey while at the same time delivering excellence in administration and e-learning provision.

Objectives

The high level objectives of this Project are: To deliver a Student Portal for use by all current students, off-site and on-site, that is personalised and customisable, with a consistent look and feel and that allows Students to login once to obtain access to all the information and services provide by the Portal. To achieve external recognition and accreditation for the Student Portal once delivered. To develop a frame work that can be re-utilised to develop Portals for other groups such as Applicants, Alumni and University Staff and that allows for flexibility in changing the University Branding as required.

However, each area of the Student Portal will have specific objectives relevant to that area. For example in the Learning area the objectives will include the objectives that apply to the Virtual Campus and RGUiNet and objectives will be identified for all other areas of the Student Portal.

The Robert Gordon University IT SERVICES Project Planning

Proposal to ITSG

Student Portal

Version: Date:

4.0 12-Jan-04

High Level Scope

This project will go through the following phases as shown in the Indicative Project Plan in section 5. The scope of each phase will be as follows:

3.1

Project Initiation
Forming Project Board and Project Team. Confirming hardware and software configuration for approval by the Project Board and to allow the procurement process to start. Completion and approval of the Project Quality Plan.

This will involve:

3.2

Design

This stage has already commenced in that Workshops with Staff and Students have allowed for an initial Portal hierarchy and prototype to be developed. This stage will build on this as follows: Student Portal stakeholders will be involved in mapping out the portal and contributing ideas on design, look and feel completed during November 2003. Confirm the design with Stakeholders and have this ratified by the Project Board. Confirm ownership for each area in the Portal. Write detailed functional specifications for sign off by area owners. Develop options for corporate branding and themes. Agree technical standards for the Portal Build and on-going maintenance.

3.3

Build Portal

This will include: Installation and configuration of a Portal Development environment. Implementation of security and administration. Build Portal to deliver the functionality, information and services as detailed at a high level in the Project Quality Plan and in a detailed way in the functional specifications.

3.4

Build Production Environment

This will include: Installation and configuration of the Portal hardware and software production environment. This will deliver a hardware configuration that will allow for consolidation of the existing Web environment, providing reasonable failover, expectation of 24x7 operations with downtime at the levels experienced by the current Web environment and future scalability options. This will adhere to the defined Strategy for Servers and Oracle databases. Testing of the hardware and software configuration to ensure that backups and failover plans actually work.

This environment will be used for Acceptance testing.

3.5

Acceptance Testing

This will include: Writing of test plans. Full end-to-end testing by the Project Team and testing by business users who own the information and services being provided.

The Robert Gordon University IT SERVICES Project Planning

Proposal to ITSG

Student Portal

Version: Date:

4.0 12-Jan-04

3.6

Build Test Environment

After the Portal is delivered for production use there will be a need for a test environment that mirrors the configuration of the Production environment. This will be set-up and tested just before the Golive point, and will be provided by the Server Strategy Project.

3.7

Deliver Portal

This will be the final point of delivery when the Portal is made available for students to login to.

High Level Requirements

The estimates detailed in this proposal are based upon the delivery of a Student Portal that will provide the following excluding Learning requirements and as shown in the Portal Prototype.

4.1

General requirements
Login once to all Portal facilities, applications and information. Modern, consistent look and feel with some customisation but with an easily reset default look and feel. Must deliver a personalised view to each student. The default look and feel must reflect the University Branding Strategy. Must comply with SENDA legislation. Recent History of Portal Areas accessed. Items delivered should be accessible from more than one area of the Portal if this is appropriate. Integrate items from SITS Student Vision Portal where possible.

4.2

Portal Home Page

Login and customisation options. University, IT and Estates News applicable to all students. University advertising space applicable to all students. School news. Task list of things to do with links to run applications such as register for graduation or to enrol when relevant.

4.3

Learning

To be defined by the Department of E-Learning to include facilities from the Virtual Campus, RGUiNet and GraysNet and the Library. It is anticipated that this area will also contain course and exam timetables.

4.4

Records

This area will contain everything associated with Records and Admin such as: Enrolment when relevant. Graduation Task list when relevant. View Financial Account. Make Payments. View GPAS Account. Update Personal details. Single Sign on set-up. Student Reports. Student Forms such as absence forms. Exam Results.

The Robert Gordon University IT SERVICES Project Planning

Proposal to ITSG

Student Portal

Version: Date:

4.0 12-Jan-04

In particular, it is hoped that this area will integrate in a seamless way with the SITS Portal.

4.5

Support

This will be all types of support services excluding support for Learning which will be in the Learning area: Accommodation Information. Book welfare, debt, counselling, chaplaincy and careers appointments and see information on the services provided in all these areas. Campus Maps. Careers Vacancies and part-time work. International Student Services. Student Handbook.

4.6

Interact

This will be everything to do with communicating: A-Z Index of the Portal. Outlook email, calendar and tasks. Fault reporting. Favourite links. Offsite H: drive access. Standard desktop links. University Telephone directory

4.7

Social

This will contain: Bus timetables and travel information. Classified Ads. Discounts/offers. Forth coming events. Groups and Clubs and registration. Local and national news. RGU Merchandise Sports weather reports such as ski reports. Tourist Attractions/Local information Weather

Projected Benefits
To provide a framework to support the Student Journey and to enhance the relationship between the University and students. Consolidate delivery of Student Services, E-Learning and IT Facilities both on-site and off-site. More time available for University support staff to spend with students when support is needed by increased self-service delivery of standard information and services. Increased security in one user login to all facilities and services delivered through the portal. Compliance with legislation in the areas of Data Protection and Freedom of Information will be achieved by quick and secure access to all information required by students. University Web site will be able to move towards having a clear marketing focus and purpose. The hardware and software configuration that will be implemented for Student Portal will provide the environment required for future Portal developments.

The Robert Gordon University IT SERVICES Project Planning

Proposal to ITSG

Student Portal

Version: Date:

4.0 12-Jan-04

Implementation Options

From the requirements that have been identified and considering the Project Objectives, there are a number of potential development and implementation options. Skill sets and software are already available to enable the Student Portal to be developed either using Oracle Portal, which is a part of the Oracle Campus agreement, or in ColdFusion, as is the case for the University Web site and Web Applications. Some work has been done to evaluate and cost these options but further work is required before a firm decision can be made, as there is also a dependency on the implementation of the server strategy.

Indicative Project Plan

The Project Plan for implementation is considered to be similar, regardless of the technical solution.

Indicative Resource Requirements

The table below shows the anticipated resource levels of IT resource required to support this project, expressed in man-days. In addition, business resource will be required during the Project Initiation, Design and Acceptance Testing phases of the Project.
2004 Resources Project Manager Lead Technical/Web Developer Web Developer Web Developer/Graphics Design DBA Business Analyst Infrastructure Engineer External Portal Contractor-Oracle o Total IT Resource Q1 24 28 5 32 0 16 0 Q2 36 48 25 30 24 16 20 Q3 36 48 104 10 30 36 8 40 312 Q4 36 48 120 0 60 36 24 0 324 2005 Q1 36 44 120 0 30 36 16 0 282 Q2 36 36 48 0 15 36 0 0 171 Q3 12 8 8 0 0 5 0 0 33 Total 216 260 560 40 197 173 80 60 1586

40 120

145 319

Indicative Costs

It is anticipated that the solution will cost in the region of 100k but this is dependent upon the chosen technical option.

10 Assumptions, Constraints and Exclusions

The following are known to apply to this project:

The Robert Gordon University IT SERVICES Project Planning

Proposal to ITSG

Student Portal

Version: Date:

4.0 12-Jan-04

It is anticipated that items provided in the SITS E-vision portal can be integrated with the Student Portal. It is hoped that this can be confirmed by the end of January 2004. Although single-sign on through the Student Portal is expected to be achieved for all applications to be delivered through the Student Portal it is the case that on-site students will have to login once to the University network and then again to see secure items delivered by the Student Portal. The hardware and software configuration of the Student Portal will align with the Server Strategy and Oracle database consolidation strategy. To ensure 24 x 7 availability of services in the Student Portal that will come from the existing Cold Fusion environment, such as Enrol Online. It is essential that the existing Cold Fusion environment is upgraded at some point, to deal with the issue of the current Production Web Server being a single point of failure. Hardware and software costs to achieve this will be around 25k this cost is not included as part of the costing for the Student Portal Project. The levels of integration of E-Leaning and Student Portal have not been agreed. It will be necessary to resolve this before the start of the Project.