Is a portal just a clever search across different resources then?
Yes, and no! A key feature of portals is their ability to search across many distributed resources. However, portals can also make information available through other means (e.g., RSS). In addition, different data types are often best presented outside the context of a search. Hence, portals can bring information together through a variety of routes and present it in a variety of ways. Within the Information Environment, alerting services, associated learning materials, conference lists and access to e-prints are amongst those additional services being investigated.
