My Southeast Quick Start Tutorial

Web portals are Web sites that aim to give users a starting point when accessing the world wide Web.  Information is usually organized into tabs and channels, which are customizable containers where specific information or an application appears.  Channels make it easy to locate the information that interests users by categorizing content.

Web portals offer advantages over static home pages because they are customizable and capable of offering user-specific views.  Content is displayed according to roles, such as faculty, student, staff, alumni, etc.  Roles help the portal determine user privileges for reading content, adding channels and tabs, and accessing services. 

Notice that the channels are differentiated from each other by borders and that each contains a title and a tool bar. Some channels provide options such as the ability to delete, maximize, minimize (thereby removing the text but preserving the title), or even getting help topics about the channel. When you click on the links within the channels, full pages of information open. For example, an announcement channel may only contain the text of the last three or four announcements that you have received. Depending on the length of a given announcement, the text may only contain the first one or two sentences. However, when you click on the link contained in any of the displayed announcements, the Personal Announcement page opens displaying a list of all the announcements that you have been sent in their entirety.

In a Web portal, individual users can add or remove channels and tabs to organize content according to personal preferences.  A Music student, for example, can add music-related channels to the main tab (the one that shows first), while an athlete can add sports-related content and services.  Every time you log in to the system, your tab and channel preferences are preserved so the portal becomes your own personalized home page.
 

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