Web Based Student Portal Chapter 2

Chapter 2

REVIEW RELATED LITERATURE, STUDIES, AND EXISTING SYSTEM

This chapter provides an in-depth understanding of portal and its benefits in the field of education. This chapter also describes the guidelines and best practice in implementing academic portal.

Review of Related Literature

From Static Website to Portal

According to Connolly (2002), it is important to understand the differences between Internet Web sites, intranets, and portals before developing and integrating portal technology and enabling Web-based solutions.

An Internet Web site is the most basic manifestation of Web technology, providing information through hypertext markup language (HTML) that allows for cross referencing with hyperlinks. Consumers worldwide can access the Internet; thus the information presented on an Internet Web site is intended for public consumption without restriction.

An intranet Web site is one that is contained within an organization. Its purpose is to provide more relevant, useful Web-based solutions to an internal community. People have access to an intranet through an authentication process, usually involving usernames and passwords that they must remember. Intranets afford a way to present information to a restricted audience. For Web-based application developers, the dichotomy between Internet Web sites for presenting public information and intranet Web sites for presenting restricted information creates a development burden. Several Web sites must be maintained to provide security and confidentiality for certain kinds of information, possibly even duplicating some information on more than one site.

A portal, on the other hand, is a gateway to the Web that allows the plethora of information available on Internet and intranet Web sites to be organized and customized through a single entry point. A good portal provides seamless access for non-authenticated users until sensitive information is requested, when it then prompts for a username and...