Portals in Higher and Further Education. EDNER (Formative Evaluation of the Distributed National Electronic Resource) Project. Issues Paper.

This issues paper, fifth in a series of eight, is intended to distill formative evaluation questions on topics that are central to the development of the higher and further education information environment in the United Kingdom. The term "portal" is so widely used by so many people with so many different perspectives that definition is difficult. In its simplest form a portal is a filter for Web content, a place form which users can locate the Web resources they commonly need. Other aspects of portals that receive attention are the fusion function of portals, which involve cross searching of multiple resources and presentation of the aggregated results within the portal. Personalization is an aspect of a portal in that they select information on the basis of the individual user's needs. Portals for higher education will need to meet many requirements, and they will need to address a significant proportion of the resources that are available within the fields. Many of the issues surrounding portal development have little to do with technology, and more to do with sustainability and determining user needs. (SLD)