Harvard to Lauch Internet Portal Project

With new "portal pages" designed around the needs of individual students, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is aiming next fall to give undergraduates their own private entrance to the Information Superhighway.

The Portal Project, a new initiative in the works by FAS' Information Technology committee will give students access to a customized Web site with constantly updated links to Harvard information.

Depending on how quickly developers can perfect a final version, student portal pages might be available as early as the fall semester, committee members said.

The goal of the project, according to David B. Alpert '00, one of the two undergraduate representatives to the committee, is to create "a single Web page customized for each student where students can go access all sorts of information."

The portal pages will be very similar to personalized pages available through Yahoo, Excite or Netscape. Most of the information available will be relevant to Harvard, but students can add their own links as well.

Referring to Yahoo's personalized sites--called MyYahoo--Alpert said the proposed portal system "is like MyHarvard."

"It's a way of organizing Harvard and personal data," said Gray Professor of Systematic Botany Donald H. Pfister, a member of the committee and also Kirkland House Master.

According to committee members, students will log into the site with their Harvard identification numbers and a special personal identification number.

Links to classes in which students are enrolled would be available on the portal pages, as well as each student's concentration page and House newsletter.

Information from the College calendar could be accessed through the portals, but it could be set either by category or by organization.

Rather than going through the Registrar Office's Web site, students will also be able to directly access grades and other registration information.

"We are trying to get as much data that students use onto the page," said Director of FAS Computer Services Franklin M. Steen.

Steen stressed that students will still have the discretion to shape their portals.

"Very little will be required," Steen said. "There may be some mandatory announcements but the rest can be added or removed and their placement on page can be determined by the student."

Students can already bookmark their favorite links on their own computers as well as make personalized Web pages, but portal pages will automatically make a site for students that they can access from anywhere, said Professor of Pure and Applied Physics Paul C. Martin, who chairs the committee.

Another advantage of portal pages is that they will motivate already existing sites to keep information current, Steen said.

"We expect that the presence of the portals will encourage Houses and departments to keep their pages up-to-date," Steen said.

But Martin noted that the portal pages were not developed to force Web sites to maintain their content.

"We're not in the business of telling people to update their Web pages," he said. "The important thing is to enable people to get the information that is there."

The benefits of portal pages will not be limited to students, Martin said. The system will make it possible for course heads to access updated versions of class lists, assisting them at the beginning of the semester when students frequently add and drop courses.

Alpert said systems much like the proposed portal pages are already in use elsewhere.

A similar system is already in use at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA.) At Harvard Business School (HBS) a "Course Platform" on the Intranet makes all course assignments and other information available to students through their computers.

Head of Technology Development at HBS James A. Farley said their system has worked well.

"We've received very positive feedback on the Intranet in general, and the Course Platform specifically," he said. "The Intranet has absolutely increased student usage of the web for day-to-day information gathering and communication."

In planning the specifications for the portal pages, the committee consulted focus groups composed of people with different perspectives--members of the Harvard Computer Society as well as less technologically savvy students.

Developers have already finished a model for the portal pages, but it currently runs slower than ultimately desired, Martin said.

Steen said a beta version of the new system should go on the Internet sometime this summer.