The University of Manchester

May 2006 – May 2007

Development of a University wide portal (using uPortal 2.5.2 (J2EE) framework) to deliver personalised content to 20,000 student users. Contribution/collaboration with the Java Architecture Special Interests Group (JA-SIG) community to share solutions/enhancements for the portal framework and content. JSR-168 Portlet/iChannel applications and Java web applications, delivered through the portal (http://www.portal.manchester.ac.uk).

Projects

Student Services Centre (SSC) Portlets

A collection of 5 portlet applications migrating from an existing inefficient Oracle portal, into more scalable uPortal framework and adhering to the JSR-168 portlet spec. Provides personalised facilities for students such as Exam timetable delivery, Requesting documents, track requests, awards and bursaries eligibility assessment, careers guidance appointments, etc. These applications reduce the number of face to face enquires at the SSC office and eliminate the need to produce printed exam timetables.

Email Summary Portlet

A portlet application displaying a summary of the last 5 emails received in the users’ University IMAP server using Java Mail API. A single sign-on link is provided for users to access the UOM webmail client to read/send all email, without having to retype credentials.

Library Account Summary Portlet

A portlet application integrating Talis Keystone API using remote services via REST/SOAP to access the University library system and provide a summary of the user’s library account.

Others

RSS reader portlet, Single sign-on facility using Java Cryptographic API, PDrives portlet, Bookmarks Channel.

Technologies:

Java 1.5, JSR-168, Spring 2.0, MySQL5, JA-SIG uPortal 2.5.2, Web Services, PL/SQL.