Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

Web Portal for Software Engineering Courses

Dejan Rančić, Slobodanka Đorđević-Kajan,

Ivan Milentijević

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

What is a portal?

As with many internet terms, the word "portal" has: – appeared in the online vocabulary very quickly – been adopted by several different web site models – been applied to almost anything (!)

– already spawned several variations - vortal, personal portal, and

so on

So, rather than try to give a direct answer to the question "what is a portal ?", it may be more practical to answer "what does a portal do ?" and "what kinds of sites might be called portals ?".

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

What Does a Portal Do? (Part I)

The word "portal" now means different things to different people, so a single definition is no longer possible. There are however, distinctive features and facilities that appear on sites that could be described as portals:

 FocusPortals typically concentrate on one subject - an interest, a business sector, or an individual company (external or internal).The main benefit of the portal approach is to save the users time by removing much of the "noise" of the internet, and identifying the sites and content likely to be of most relevance.

 

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

What Does a Portal Do? (Part II)

VarietyWithin any focused portal, a variety of content is typically offered. The objective of most portal builders is to create an environment that will become the users' home page - the place from where they start their browsing, and the place they consistently return to.

AggregationPulling together content from disparate sources is a main portal function. The benefit to the user is that someone else is spending time identifying and packaging content and services that are most likely to be of interest to them, avoiding duplication, and concentrating attention on the best fit items.

 

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

What Does a Portal Do? (Part III)

InteractionPortals understand that user interaction is a key aspect of creating a "sticky" site, and so services that generate user input and "return to see" actions are common.

DynamicReal time information is a common portal feature.

PersonalisationTo avoid users being tempted away by a portal that better fits their needs, many portals - especially horizontal portals - allow their users to change aspects of the portal to suit them. This might include which components are displayed, the layout of the portal, inclusion of personal information, and so on.

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

What Does a Portal Do? (Part IV)

CommunityAlthough most portals provide some form of content, many rely significantly on their user base to provide content in various forms - specialist expertise, advice, resource recommendations, reviews, discussion, feedback.

SelectionQuality control and pre-selction of information and resources.

DirectorySome form of directory of links is at the heart of most

portals. Only subject-specific relevant links are included

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

Vs. Home Page

Home page

• Static content• Same content for all

• Aim: To inform

Portal

• Dynamic content• Different content for

different users• Aim: To enable

some kind of business

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

Techniques and Methods of programming: Portal for the course

http://gislab.elfak.ni.ac.yu/tmp

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

Techniques and Methods of programming: the course organisation

Course activities:

Labs :– UML– Visual C/C++– Rational Rose– Rational SODA

Student projects:– RUP– Visual C/C++

Exam:– Written part– Oral part

PORTAL

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

Exam statechart diagram

PortalLabs

Student projects

Final exam

Exam(written part)

Exam is not passed

Exam(oral part)

Exam is passed

passed

not passed

not finished

not finished

finished

finished

quit

passednot passed

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

Interaction with portal

Login

members

unsuccesfull

New user login

others

incomplete data

Project competition

not approved

Account approval

approved

not approved

Projectproposals

Messagingservis

Logout

Project docs upload

not finished

System administration

Administrator

M

quit

student

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

Technology

PHP + MySQL

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

Conclusions

• One public place for all activities related to course

• Up to date informing

• Easy course material distribution (docs, models, code, …)

• Less “face to face” communication between students and teachers

Faculty of Electronic Engineering Niš - TEMPUS project

…one important thing

This portal is realised as a student project at Techniques and methods of programming

course…