Portal

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Definition

Portal is A special web page that organizes access to all of the online resources relating to a topic, similar to providing a ‘one-stop shop’ Source: Planning and Execution of Knowledge Management Assist Missions for Nuclear Organizations

Portal is Template:Portal 2 Source: Planning and Execution of Knowledge Management Assist Missions for Nuclear Organizations

Description

Knowledge portals typically provide a single, personalized interface point for accessing and consolidating information from disparate sources. Knowledge portals can be used to access knowledge repositories and communities of practice. Typical resources that should be accessible via a knowledge portal are information items about places of learning, opportunities for learning and research, experts, meeting opportunities, factual data and informative texts. See Communities of practice and Knowledge repositories.

Source: Planning and Execution of Knowledge Management Assist Missions for Nuclear Organizations

Description

A portal is a comprehensive access structure to resources (web ‘super site’) that provides a single, often personalized interface point for accessing and consolidating information from disparate sources. The purpose of a portal is:

• An integration tool — to provide easy, unified and integrated access to an organization’s own resources;
• An access tool for other (internal and external) information resources;
• A communication tool — to enable individuals, teams and ‘communities of practice’ to share and discuss ideas and knowledge.

In and R&D organization a portal offers many advantages:

• Increases staff productivity (by reducing the time taken to access information and provide it in a more useful form.);
• Providing management with powerful data management tools (for an effective overview of performance and activities);
• More effective decision-making (based on access to needed knowledge);
• Recognition of the value of knowledge (as a key element of human capital with significant commercial value).

For an R&D organization, content for a portal might be organized as shown below in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Example portal content for an R&D organization

The IAEA recognize that portals have an important and beneficial function in most nuclear organizations and have produced a guidance document that addresses the main development process [9]. Examples of software tools commonly used to develop portals include:

• IBM: WebSphere Portal Server (www.ibm.com);
• Microsoft: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (www.microsoft.com);
• Oracle: WebLogic Portal (www.oracle.com);
• Oracle: WebCenter Suite (www.oracle.com);
• SAP: SAP NetWeaver Portal (www.sap.com);
• Sun: Sun Java System Portal Server (www.sun.com);
• Open Text:Vignette Portal (www.opentext.com);
• Broadvision: Broadvision Portal (www.broadvision.com).

Source: Knowledge Management for Nuclear Research and Development Organizations

References

[9] INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY, Development of Knowledge Portals for Nuclear Power Plants, IAEA Nuclear Energy Series, No. NG-T-6.2, IAEA, Vienna (2009).