What is an institutional portal?
An institutional portal provides a personalised, single point of access to the online resources that support members of an institution in all aspects of their learning, teaching, research and other activities. The resources may be internal or external and include local and remote ‘information resources’ (books, journals, databases, Web-sites, learning objects, images, student information systems etc.), ‘transaction-based services’ (room bookings, finance, registration, assignment submission, assessment, etc.) and ‘collaborative tools’ (calendars, email, chat, etc.). Access to many of these resources is usually restricted to authenticated members of the institution. In some cases the institutional portal may provide a view of institutional resources to end-users outside the institution, for example alumni and prospective students.
