uPORTAL - EDUCATION GRID

PORTAL OF PORTAL FOR UNIVERSITY & EDU GRID SERVICES

Education Grid The Education Grid Project is a path-breaking initiative of the Government of to provide

quality education to all the students pursuing higher studies in the state. The project

vision is to provide quality education to all, independent of geography.

The project aims to facilitate multiple independent course-specific collaborative

information and knowledge networks across distributed servers over the Internet as well

as affordable and pedagogically effective online assisted learning environment for the

colleges in any subject.

Introduction to uPortal uPortal is a framework for producing a campus portal. It is a free, sharable portal under

development by institutions of higher-education. We see an institutional portal as an

abridged and customized version of the institutional Web presence, a "pocket-sized"

version of the campus Web.

Portal technology adds "customization" and "community" to the campus Web presence.

Customization allows each user to define a unique and personal view of the campus Web.

Community tools, such as chat, forums, survey, and so on, build relationships among

campus constituencies.

The primary differentiator is that uPortal is focused on the requirements of higher

education institutions, whereas other products are mostly focused on the requirements of

large corporations, even if the product is marketed to higher education institutions.

Goal There are many portal offerings. Most of them are vendor offerings. In those cases the

back-end systems that integrate with the portal are from either the same vendor or a

vendor that has partnered with another vendor.

This causes problems when the portal in question is required to integrate with the

software provided by either another vendor or the institution. An example of this might be

integration with library services.

Since it is unlikely that any one vendor can provide all of the services needed by a given

campus, it becomes difficult for the campus to provide a consistent, standard way of

integrating components. The goal of this project is to provide a software container that

solves the software/content integration problem through uPortal.

OBJECTIVE uPortal is a platform for presenting aggregated content to a variety of sources that is

customizable by both the user and the administrators. It is built using a database to

contain the information about each user, with XSL transformations and JAVA to take this

abstract data and convert it into the final, structured layout.

One of the great advantages to the uPortal design is the fact that the layout data, the

structure and the look of the final layout are all independent of each other.

Therefore, the information that is taken out of the database can be transformed by

different XSL documents, rendering the same layout data into a wide variety of final views.

The objective of the project is to customize and deploy uPortal for Education Grid.

DEVELOPMENT / PROGRAM ENVIRONMENT

Configuration used for Development

Processor : Intel Pentium 4

Memory : 256 MB SDRAM

Hard disk : 40 GB or above

Monitor : 17 inch VGA

Keyboard : 108 Key

Pointing device : Asus Mouse

Modem : 256 Kbps

SOFTWARE SPECIFICATION

Operating System : Any Operating System with Java support

RDBMS : SQL SERVER, ORACLE

Data Store : XML

Web server : Apache server with tomcat plug-in

Application Server : Tomcat 4.x

Text editor : Jcreator would be used for coding and debugging

Web Browser : Latest version of Internet Explorer

Build Tool : ANT

Language : Java

� JDK: uPortal requires the Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.1.8 or higher. You can obtain

the JDK by going to the download section at http://java.sun.com/

� ANT: Ant the build tool, version 1.4 or later, which may be downloaded from

http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/

� A Java Servlet Engine/Container. This must be compatible with the Servlet 2.2 and

JSP 1.1 API. uPortal is developed under Tomcat making it a good platform to adopt (

the build files for uPortal have been set up such that it can be easily deployed into

Tomcat).

� A JDBC compliant database. The following databases should work with some

modification to the CREATE scripts and a number of SQL statements: HypersonicSQL,

MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server, PosgreSQL, DB2, Sybase SQL Server and Ingres

� SQL SERVER / ORACLE is used as the database for this customization.

SYSTEM STUDY AND ANALYSIS

EXISTING SYSTEM

At present there is no such framework available for the portal, Education Grid.

PROPOSED SYSTEM

In an educational context, we are facing many challenges. How do we keep the

administration, faculty, staff, and students well informed about institutional policies and

procedures?

How do we ensure the student body receives accurate and up-to-date information that help

them to achieve their educational and career goals?

In addition, we hope to build learning communities - communities of students, instructors,

administration, faculty, and staff all collaborating and constructing strong relationships that

provide the foundation for students to achieve their goals with greater success.

We also want to promote information sharing so users can build on their experiences at the

institution. Plus, we want to provide seamless integration with legacy and other

applications.

One solution to these goals is to provide a support tool for such learning through a Web

portal. This portal should provide all users with valuable information about their personal

details and interests, and about the institution. However, building a portal is no small task,

especially when you consider the shrinking budgets and limited resources in today's

economy.

A good solution might be one of the available out-of-the-box portals. However, if

customization, direction, and cost are a concern, you might want to look at uPortal by Java

in Administration Special Interest Group (JA-SIG). uPortal is a free open source portal

project built on Java, XML, and XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language).

This supports Web services channels, permissions and group managers etc. uPortal gives

you the flexibility to open your favorite Java editor and implement any new features you or

your institution might need. The portal is specifically focused at higher-education

institutions, although some businesses and high schools use it as a framework for building

collaborative communities.

The framework has pluggable components known as channels that deliver focused

information to the user. Users can select what channels they want to view based on their

roles in the institution and customize the site's look and feel to their preferences.

uPortal provides a framework for integrated delivery of content gathered from an

assortment of information sources. This framework provides efficient and flexible engine for

assembling a presentation.

Given a set of information sources (channels), and a recipe on how to arrange and frame

them (stylesheets), uPortal framework coordinates the compilation of the final document.

The various channels available in uPortal are: -

� Image – A container for rendering media, not just graphic images. It supports any

type of media that can be displayed or played through the browser including

graphics, flash objects, movies and audio. Exactly which formats can be supported,

i.e. PNG vs. GIF or MOV vs. WAV is dependent on the end user's browser.

� Inline Frame – Similar to the Image Channel, the Inline Frame is a container for

displaying HTML content. The content in an Inline Frame channel does not go

through the uPortal framework, so it does NOT have to be well formed XHTML.

� RSS – Renders an RSS document of type 0.90, 0.9x or 1.0. No support is provided

for RSS 1.0 modules.

� Web Proxy – Similar to the Inline Frame Channel Type in that it is a contain from

HTML content. However, it requires well-formed XHTML and can also render an

XML application.

� XML Transformation – Renders an XML fragment, which is validated by an XSLT

stylesheet.

� Custom – Customized channel content with all required resources provided by the

writer of the channel.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

uPortal is a platform for presenting aggregated content to a variety of sources that is

customizable by both the user and the administrators. It is built using a database to contain

the information about each user, with XSL transformations and JAVA to take this abstract

data and convert it into the final, structured layout.

One of the great advantages of the uPortal design is the fact that the layout data, the

structure and the look of the final layout are all independent of each other. Here what we

have to do is to configure and implement the uPortal for Education Grid. First we have to

identify the channels that are needed for the portal and add those channels to the uPortal.

The different user groups include developer, administrator, faculty, staff, students etc. Each

user has their own login page and they have the right to customize their page according to

their wish.

FEATURES OF PROPOSED SYSTEM

� Componentization of framework

uPortal will follow a component-based implementation strategy. Component

configuration files will provide a transparent view of the overall architecture, facilitating

further enhancements of the framework and long-term maintenance of the codebase.

� Platform

Open-source code allows more options for customization and integration.

Work with many databases such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server

• Flexible options of web servers, Windows, Linux, Unix.

� Usability

uPortal does not include web-based page design functionality.

� Third-party software integration

Supports integration of third party software through Java development.

� Administration

Easy-to-use administration features such as group manager, channel manager, data

loader.

� Security

Has built-in user / group manager integrates with LDAP.

� Scalability

Specifics of uPortal scalability depend on the exact choice of application server and

database. Tools will include a database conversion tool and stylesheet conversion tool

that will enable migration from an implementation.

SYSTEM DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

uPortal is an application that aggregates content and services in a set of dynamic and

individualized web pages that deliver a unique experience to each user. Content and

services are represented within the portal as channels.

A channel is much like a small web page. It represents a specific task, service, or collection

of information. Channel design and implementation is a bit different than web page design,

but easy to master.

Portals aggregate these channels intelligently, by leveraging what they know about the user

(personalization), including affiliation (e.g. faculty, staff, student) and by combining that

information with choices the user may have made to indicate what content and services

they want to see (customization).

The portal offers content providers with a mechanism to provide key services and

information to specific audiences. The portal also provides services such as single sign-on,

which can be used with applications that require PID/password authentication.

Channel Design Concepts

uPortal combine content and services from many sources. Each distinct piece of content is

called a channel. From a user's perspective, a channel provides information or offers a way

to perform a task, or both.

However, from the perspective of a content provider there are four distinct types of

channels.

� Information Channel: a non-interactive type of channel that typically contains

information such as announcements, lists of links, or an article or some other text.

� Data Channel: a non-interactive type of channel that contains dynamically generated

data tailored to the individual user, some personal information contained within a

database etc.

� Web Channel: an interactive or non-interactive channel that might contain an image

or the contents of an existing web page.

� Application Channel: an interactive channel that allow user to perform tasks such as

searching or updating information.

Presentation assembly

uPortal is a framework for an integrated delivery of content gathered from an assortment of

information sources. A framework is a reusable design, expressed as a set of classes that

can serve as a solution to a family of related problems and support reuse at a larger

granularity than classes.

A mature framework allows components to be reused as "black boxes", that is, a

programmer can incorporate them into a system under construction without knowing their

implementations.

The primary function of the framework is to provide efficient and flexible engine for

assembling a presentation. Given a set of information sources (channels), and a recipe on

how to arrange and frame them (stylesheets), uPortal framework coordinates the

compilation of the final document.

The starting point for any presentation assembly is always an abstract organization of

channels: the user layout document. The assembly process transforms the userLayout

document in three major stages to obtain the final document in a desired markup language.

The first stage translates an abstract user Layout hierarchy into the structural terms of the

final presentation. That translation is termed structure transformation, and its logic is

defined by the structure stylesheet.

For example, the structure stylesheet for the default “tab and column” presentation will

translate abstract user layout structure into a structure of “tab” and “column” elements.

After the structure transformation, uPortal initiates rendering cycles of the channels that will

be incorporated into the final presentation.

The second stage of the assembly process will translate the result of the structure

transformation into a target markup language. This translation is termed theme

transformation, and its logic is defined by the theme stylesheet.

For example, default nested-tables theme transforms a document produced by the tab-

column structure transformation (a structure of tabs, columns, etc.) into a set of nested

HTML tables that visually resemble tabs and columns.

The content provided by each individual channel will be incorporated into the result of the

structure transformation.

The final stage serializes the result of the theme transformation together with the channel

content into a stream of characters according to the rules of the target markup language

and media.

uPortal has a dozen successful implementations and many more institutions, vendors and

agencies engaged in new implementations. New technologies, specifically XML and XSLT,

are making portals more flexible and able to support more devices.

uPortal is a leader in this segment of the portal market. Vendors, seeing the uPortal effort

as both standards-setting and a commodity, have adopted uPortal saving both time and

development cost.

Others are supporting uPortal by “channelizing” their products using uPortal channel

interfaces. The functional requirements of academic portals have expanded sharply during

the year as experience identified benefits from new capabilities.

The uPortal technology provides a concrete way of managing the content and constituents

of the electronic campus. It allows users to personalize content according to their roles and

preferences.

uPortal will enable the institute to:

� Attract students

� Maintain alumni network

� Attract research partners

� Offer distant, flexible learning

� Engage, connect and build community

� Improve administration efficiency

� Offer personalized, customized and targeted service

� Improve service to students and staff

� Integrate and streamline information & services

� Enhance university image and raise profile