A campus portal development methodology to match stakeholder activity

Although introduced less than seven years ago, a Campus Portal (CP) can be considered as an emerging technological innovation within higher education institutions. A large number have already adopted the concept and are currently implementing some type of portal to extend the services of their Web site and information systems to support the activities of institutional stakeholders, especially students. There is some literature recommending sets of characteristics and functionality for successful CPs, in particular personalisation and customisation. However there is a lack of evidence on which aspects of core attributes lead to the failure of a portal to satisfy user requirements in regard to their personalisation and customisation functionality. This paper reports the findings of a CP study and discusses the importance of personalisation and customisation as part of the core set of portal functionalities. These should therefore be considered in the process of CP design and development and be included in any proposed CP Development Methodology (CPDM).