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

Portal is Template:Portal 3 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

Description

Purpose of a knowledge portal

Knowledge management encompasses a variety of activities including the support of operations and the effective management of human resources (coaching, mentoring, succession management etc.). However, one of the most important aspects of effective knowledge management is easy access to relevant and useful data, information and knowledge [4]. Role of a knowledge portal is to act as a gateway to users through which they could access all information they need for their activity, safe, secure and in the best quality. Hence, a knowledge portal has three primary purposes:

1. As an integration tool. This provides easy, unified and integrated access to an organization’s own resources. Most NPPs have existing, but diverse systems for collecting and accessing important information such as plant performance parameters, operating procedures, document management, work control, training and qualification records etc. An effective knowledge portal would provide a single point of access to all of these systems and would be structured in such a way that the location and retrieval of such information would be quick and easy.
2. As an access tool for other (internal and external) information resources. There are many useful sources of information, beyond their own organization’s resources, which can be made available to staff. In reality, many staff members are unaware of the rich and up to date documents available for their work. This includes, for example: safety standards, guidance documents and reports from IAEA, World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) and regulatory bodies; INIS information; academic courses (distance learning) and libraries; government laboratories and libraries; nuclear industry forums; and training materials — both generic and plant specific. All of these could add to the support knowledge and effec- tiveness of NPP staff.
3. As a communication tool. This enables individuals, teams and ‘communities of practice (CoP)’ to share and discuss ideas and knowledge. A key aspect of knowledge management is the ability to share and discuss information, giving it context and thus making it knowledge. An effective knowledge portal should therefore facilitate formal and informal communication between individuals, work and project teams and various CoP in real time.

The purpose of the knowledge portal is to provide a structured system for easy, computer based, access to any information (in the form of plant performance and system data, drawings, design descriptions, procedures, guides, reference material, reports, studies, training materials etc.), which can be used by staff to maintain and improve their own, and hence their NPPs, productivity and performance. In addition, the portal should provide access to relevant non-technical information, such as news, email, management and administrative information etc., and should facilitate communication and discussions between individuals and teams (functional, role based and project) for the sharing and growth of corporate knowledge.

Scope of an NPP portal

When addressing the concept of an NPP portal, two main aspects may be considered:

• Design principles of a knowledge portal. Here the functionalities of the portal are suggested in terms of principles and techniques currently in use, many of which can be found as features of products readily available on the market;

• Content. Here topics are listed that could become the content to be managed by the portal, again based on the experience of existing portal users.

The following two sections provide more details on the design and content of NPP portals based on what is presently considered good practice. These are not intended to be prescriptive lists. Rather, items of interest should be selected based on the particular needs of the NPP considering the development of a portal. They may also be useful as checklists in order to avoid accidental omission of relevant functionality and/or content [5].

Source: Development of Knowledge Portals for Nuclear Power Plants

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).