# Presentation: 608316

## InterLab 2007 
Workshop Presentation

**Workshop Presentation**

- CM in transition:                All of the above

## What we have tried to do

**Make the most of limited  funding and staff resources**
**Keep information current**
**Provide key information in varied formats to reach multiple audiences**
**Cut out the middleman**
**Avoid posting errors and problems**
**Increase homogeneity**
**Drive traffic to the public site**

## Public Site

**Almost 3 years old**
**Static framework; dynamic components**
**Built by repackaging existing content**
**Intended to be a placeholder until we sorted out portal issues**

## News Releases

**Cleaned and loaded hundreds of old static releases to db**
**Provided UI for posting, updating deleting new releases**
**Added image and audio and video clip capability**
**Facilitated tagging, emailing, etc.**

## RSS and Podcast

**Minimal programming allows you to generate an RSS feed from the same data**
**A simple news pod can be created by pointing an RSS feed at the .mp3 audio files associated with recent releases**
**These clips and their associated pod have been popular with local radio stations**

## Tagging and Bookmarking

**Social bookmarking websites like Digg, del.icio.us provide users with a way to store, classify, review, and share bookmarks**
**Social bookmarking sites aggregate user input to rank and classify sites and enable users to search bookmarks based on keywords or tags**

## Why bother with these things?

**When we use feeds, pods, or tags, we’re not just delivering  information through a different medium...**
**We’re often delivering it to a different audience or in a more immediate timeframe, or both**
**Demographics indicate that the need to provide “flexible” content and encourage user interaction will continue to increase **

## Any frequently updated content is fair game

**It’s cheap and easy to generate a feed from information stored in database or an XML file**
**It’s not much more trouble to do the same with an HTML file if your coding is consistent (or if you’re really good at writing regular expressions)**

## News Release UI

## News Release UI

## News Release UI

## Story Tips

**Resource for media outlets **
**Loaded old story tips to a database**
**Provided UI for posting, updating deleting tips**
**Generate RSS feed from same data**

## Story Tips UI

## Technical Calendar

**Resource for staff, visitors,  businesses, collaborators **
**Drawn from internal announcements and events db**
**Provided UI for Technical Calendar**
**Generate RSS feed from same data**

## Technical Calendar UI

## Visitor Kiosks

**Much of the top-level content from the public site is ****re-used on the Visitor Information website that is displayed on internet kiosks around the laboratory**

## ORNL Today

**Employee news site**
**Slightly modified version also used for visitor kiosks**
**UI enables editors/authors to create and maintain each week’s evolving issue without HTML**
**Also generates an RSS feed**

## ORNL Today UI

## ORNL Today UI

## Announcements and Events

**Filtered event information is used on various internal and public pages**
**Entries are submitted by staff and approved and maintained by representatives of various groups**

## Announcements and Events UI

## Announcements and Events UI

## Site Index (A-Z)

**Filtered versions are used on several different sites (internal, public, group-specific)**
**In process of being synched with Sharepoint search tool’s keywords data tables**

## Site Index UI

## What was accomplished?

**Less staff time spent fixing HTML problems**
**The information included in these sites is now current by definition**
**Content is more accessible to a wider variety of audiences, with little or no additional effort**
**Information owners can almost always handle content posting without help**
**The time required to post content has dropped considerably. Troubleshooting has largely been eliminated**
**Traffic seems to have benefitted. For example, last month there were ~500,000 hits on our handful of RSS feeds.**

## What wasn’t accomplished?

**Create a data-driven website, rather than a collection of data-driven components**
**Provide the ability to interact with business applications without writing an interface from scratch**
**Develop collaboration and participation tools**
**Tap collective intelligence by providing tools to enable users to capture the information that exists in their heads and in interactions with other users**
**Empower all information owners to publish**
**Establish a common web application framework**

## Portal Selection

**Off-the-shelf portal tools**
**SAP Portal (business warehouse portal)**
**Open source portal tools**

## Portal Selection

**Initially we felt we had to decide on a single portal solution for everything**
**This approach eventually led to gridlock**
**During our lengthy decision-making process:**
**Products changed and matured**
**Interactivity among products and across platforms and browsers improved**
**The usefulness of specialized solutions for certain business areas became more apparent**
**Users “voted with their feet” by adopting available tools**

## Sharepoint Portal

**Our initial implementation is simple by design—a very out-of-the box look to begin with**
**Plan to provide a broader selection of templates and master pages when initial migration is complete**
**Use of Sharepoint Designer currently limited to IT staff**

## Sharepoint Portal

**Largely data-driven; doesn’t require coding to create, maintain basic sites**
**Everyone is a web publisher; everyone can create websites, blogs, wikis, discussion threads, workflows, etc. **
**Homogeneous interface can be maintained or customized**
**Provides tools to integrate with business applications**
**Supports a web application framework**

## Collaboration Servers

**Internal and Extranet Sharepoint sites**
**Accessible using internal and extranet authentication systems**

## Blogs and Wikis

**There are now dozens of internal blogs—including one by then Lab Director.**
**Wiki sites are increasingly popular. The most extensive example is probably the Computer Helpline’s site.**

## Behavior Policy

**ORNL’s IT Behavior Policy provides general, understandable guidance, on the appropriate use of blogs and wikis, including: **
**An emphasis on appropriate and professional conduct**
**An acknowledgement of the value of these tools in promoting scientific dialogue and enhancing research and collaborative opportunities**
**The need not to disclose various types of information**
**The need not to engage in various activities**
**A reminder to individuals that should have no expectation of privacy because they are using government-owned resources**
**The importance of obeying the laboratory’s Personal Use Policy**

## SAP Portal

**There are now a number of tools that enable interaction between SAP and Sharepoint web parts**
**However, it’s often much more practical to work with SAP in its native portal, so an SAP portal is being deployed as well to support a number of business processes**

## SAP Beta Portal

## Open SourceResearch Portals

**Sharepoint doesn’t comply with the JSR168 interoperability specification for interactions between portlets and portals**
**This makes it more difficult to deploy portlets designed for specific R&D functions on Sharepoint sites**
**Some researchers feel they need open source tools in order to participate in research communities that already use these tools**
**Ideally, these open source portal sites will eventually be able to interact with, or migrate to, Sharepoint**

## Open SourceResearch Portals

## The path forward...

**Sharepoint 2007 is our enterprise portal. It’s the choice of a plurality of our users, our CIO, our management team, and our M&O contractor.**
**SAP is able to interact with Sharepoint to populate web parts. SAP portal will serve users who require more in-depth interaction with SAP applications.**
**Specialized open source R&D portals are being used on a very limited basis, but are not centrally supported.**
**Central internal resources will be migrated to Sharepoint in the relatively near future.**
**Recent changes in Sharepoint licensing make it increasingly likely that we will implement it as a public-side solution as well.**

- Questions?