38 e- Portal / Agri- Portal

P. Jaisridhar

INTRODUCTION

e-Portal otherwise called as an electronic portal is a webpage that allows business application procedure developed by framework to be easily deployed via internet. Portals are usually created in standard Java format. It utilizes an Extensible Markup Language (XML) interface protocol in addition to Java Server Pages (JSP). Portals are given different names based on the field they are created. For example, if the portal is developed to improvise agriculture, then they are termed as agri-portals. Similarly, if a portal is developed for academic reasons they are called web portal. Examples of web portals are iGoogle, MSNBC, Netvibes, and Yahoo.

Portal concept has opened new possibilities to address some of the issues concerning the personal management of academic information and knowledge through internet. Some of the main issues are the lack of integration, personalisation and customisation of existing academic information sources and systems. A Web portal can be defined as a Web site that aggregates an array of content and provides a variety of services including search engines, directories, news, e-mail and chat rooms. Portals have evolved to provide a customised gateway to Web information. A high level of personalisation and customisation is possible (Melzer 1999; Boye 1999). It was felt that the portal concept could be further developed to function as a sophisticated Web interface that can support the task performance (teaching and research) of academics.

According to Maedche A et.al (2002), a web portal, also known as a links page, presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. They go beyond static web pages and require a sign-on which links to some knowledge the organization has collected about the visitor. That knowledge allows portals to be tailored to meet individuals need. The business dictionary, enumerated that portals go beyond the delivery of static information and often provide access to services offered by the organization. A portal makes network resources (application, databases, etc.) available to end users. The user can access the portal via a web browser, WAP phone, pager and other devices. Portals include network enabling services such as e-mail, chat rooms and calendars that interact seamlessly with other applications. Most web portals allows for adding personal links as portal providers realize that user may have other interest beyond the organizational boundaries. Personalization will make the portal more appealing to the user, thus a portal allows a user to enter their data space, which can be defined as a space where a user can view and do what he/she wants to do and not what someone else thinks should be done. Conventional interaction systems and information dissemination for students and staff (Academic and Non-Academic staff) of Indian Universities faces many challenges likeinefficient communication and lack of information dissemination. To overcome these challenges portals are the only platform where students can access vital, relevant university information anytime via the Internet. The web portal as a gateway in the World Wide Web is a starting point for people who are connecting to the Internet. The web portal as the type of knowledge management system provides a rich space to share and search information as well as communication services like content provision for the users.

2. Types of Portals:

2.1. E-Commerce Portals

Today business is done with many communication technologies such as mail order phone, mail order fax, walk-in retail and so on. Web and internet are said to be another medium of communication (Vark, 1997). With the increasing demands of online customers the need of scalable, fast, accurate and secured information exchange is very important. This creates trust in online consumers. E-commerce is generally defined as a means for transactions of goods and services through internet (some of these could be B2B, B2C etc.). E-commerce creates an indirect access of the business products and services to the customers who intend to buy just sitting at one place. This can be said as a more relaxed way of shopping (Akhter, 2004). E-portals provide a wide range of products and services and if any customers intend to buy through moving for shopping they have to move to different locations to get the same, so e-portals can be said as ―one sit shopping‖. The internet users have increased the number of commerce transaction due to mainly three reasons: it is easy to found out alternate suppliers with same equality a less cost, secondly, value addition in the existing products, thirdly the buyer is not required to engage in widow shopping. This business generated finance which increased form USD 29 to 150 Million USD till previous year showing the importance of the clientele ‘choice of e portal. One of the most important factors is the base contractual agreement which takes care about the transaction to be routed through. The distribution time is the major factor in these two cases. However, the trend has changed and the suppliers used to have distributional channel in nearby areas as such after ordering the consignment usually is deliver immediately.

The other important feature of transaction is that in case of B2B the transactions are normally unsecured but are despatched on VPP basis to ensure relaxation. However, in case of B2C the transitions can be financial and the finance is limited to limit fixed by the buyer (Vallamsetty, Kant and Mohapatra, 2003). According the survey conducted by Syncra Systems (2000) trading exchanges has begun to transform business-to-business commerce. Trading exchanges aggregate buyers and sellers in a vertical marketplace or across several interrelated marketplaces. Services can range from providing on-line vendor product catalogues to procurement, bidder qualification, financing, and commodity futures. So it can be said that trading exchanges are expanding rapidly from an indirect procurement base. They are engaging into end-to-end e-commerce portals. There are reasons for the same: First, they will handle the full trading lifecycle—from procurement, to supply chain management, to customer relationship management—spanning raw materials suppliers to consumers. Secondly the margin of profit will be higher as the middle person will be removed. The trend of usage of e-commerce portals is exceeding the immediate capabilities. Though some of the writers are of the opinion that B2C may not be bale replace the B2C, but it is proving worrying now as there are now door to door advertisements by B2C clients who are opting for the same. The critical success factor for an e-commerce portal is to attract enough transactions to become a market player and get pricing power.

Figure 1: e-Commerce sales portal model

2.1.1. e-Commerce portal’s security system

Security is defined as the protection of data against accidental or intentional disclosure to unauthorized persons, or unauthorized modification or destruction. Security is also defined as the protection of data against accidental or intentional disclosure to unauthorized persons, or unauthorized modifications or destruction. Privacy refers to the rights of individuals and organizations to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is to be transmitted to others (Udo, 2001). Security is one of the major and important factors of this relationship marketing. For a successful business relationship, security is generally is considered as the crucial component in the relationship marketing paradigm. Security is a mutual detriment of behavior and an indication of confidence in the exchange partner‘s integrity and its reliability. The importance of consumer perceptions on security in e- portals has been stressed by many researchers and practitioners keeping in view different perspectives such as social, economic, institutional, ethical, organizational, managerial, and technological approaches.It is viewed that based on the experience online consumer consciously or subconsciously analyse the security levels provided online and decide to continue transactions with that particular business (company) or move to another. Technical and non-technical barriers in e-commerce have been discussed by Akhter (2004 & 2006). Some of the barriers are said as lack of security and reliability, standard technologies for secure payment and proven online business models. Security is a major concern to vendors in B2C as this reflects the consumer perceptions towards that business. As there is uncertainty and due to many complications present in e-commerce online consumers think of whether their financial information such as credit card are safe to send to a vendor through internet (Akhter, 2006) and due to this most consumers fear to provide their credit card information on internet to do any transaction. According to an argument done by Akhter (2004), online consumer trust can be increased if e commerce or e portals can create a positive opinion on the system that it is trustworthy and secure.

2.2. Academic Portal

There were many ideas and projects to support the task performance of academics before the arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web. In 1945 Vannevar Bush published his famous article “As we may think”. His description of the memex seems very familiar,During the 1980s several projects were launched in the United States of America (USA) that focused on the development of information systems to support academics. A scholar’s workstation project was initiated by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Carnegie Mellon University and Brown University and the National Library of Medicine launched the IAIMS (Integrated Academic Information Management System) project. The Internet became more available as a research and communication aid during the late 1980’s. In 1991 the first World Wide Web (WWW or Web) navigators were introduced and in 1994 search engines were developed to retrieve Web information more effectively. The most significant Web development of 1998 was the evolution of search engines into portals, and the parallel emergence of the Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) has undoubtedly been the most significant development of 1999.

In May 2000 a Web indexing workshop in the Netherlands decided to start an academic portal initiative in Europe. Main components will be: indexing and searching tools; cross-searching automatic indexes and human-made subject gateways; directory services; video-on-demand and streaming. The purpose of Campbell’s white paper on the scholar’s portal is to suggest that the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) should seriously pursue the feasibility of developing a “library.org” Web presence. His paper refers to the proposed Web presence as the “scholars’ portal”. Increasingly the world’s business, including the business of research, is becoming Web based. Those agencies that wish to survive are busily developing new Web architectures and exploring how to migrate significant portions of their business to the Web environment. In the academic community, this move to the Web includes internal administrative business functions and increasingly the core functions of teaching and learning. Similarly, in the research library environment, integrated systems and digital library experiments have migrated to Web based functions almost totally. The scholar’s portal would promote the development of and provide access to the highest quality content on the Web. With the growing use of asynchronous learning methodologies, there is also an increasing need for extending certain elements of traditional library public services to the Web. This is already beginning to happen through experiments with virtual reference environments. A primary function of the scholar’s portal would be to provide researchers with an alternative means of retrieving dependable information beyond the capacity of commercial Web sites. Its goal would be to provide highly focused search engines adapted to the technical languages ofthe various academic specialities. By customizing search engines in this fashion and directing them to dependable sources of information, the scholar’s portal would evolve increasingly intelligent automated systems and improve the success rate of query systems.

Web portals are mainly used by the students to access their materials online, check their email, access library services, complete administration requirements etc. Some useful features of academic portal includes,

Easy access to administrative and study related information, allowing students to view and update their personal details online to ensure they don’t miss any important university correspondence
The ‘Information’ Directory helps students to locate administrative and study-related resources, policies and information, as well as services to enhance the Learning Experience.
Access to student email account, allowing sending and receiving email messages.
Access to student notices, allowing students to see the notices relevant to them as well as sending their own notices.
Access to ‘Personal Links’. Save their favourite websites in the ‘Quick Links’ portlet of the Home page in the Student Portal so they can access them from any computer.
Access to today’s weather: a useful tool to help plan a day
Front page summaries of students email, notices and library accounts for quick access
Access to library services, conduct catalogue searches, view exam results and other key services from one location.
Academic portals can be accessed from any computer within the University or Off-campus at any time provided you must be a registered member of the university to login and must have internet access.

Figure 2: Academic portal of a University model

2.3. Agri-portal

ICT can also play an important role in bringing about sustainable agricultural development when used to document both organic and traditional cultivation practices. Developing countries can create Traditional Knowledge Digital Libraries (TKDL) to collect and classify various types of local knowledge so that it can be shared more widely. These libraries could also integrate widely scattered references to Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) systems in a retrievable form. Thus IT could act as a bridge between traditional and modern knowledge systems. Through agri portal, services that can be provided in the developing world using ICT are,

Online services for information, education and training, monitoring and consultation, diagnosis and monitoring, and transaction and processing;
e-commerce for direct linkages between local producers, traders, retailers and suppliers;
The facilitation of interaction among researchers, extension (knowledge) workers, and farmers;
Question-and-answer services where experts respond to queries on specialised subjects ICT services to block- and district-level developmental officials for greater efficiency in delivering services for overall agricultural development;
Up-to-date information, supplied to farmers as early as possible, about subjects such as packages of practices, market information, weather forecasting, input supplies, credit availability, etc.;
Creation of databases with details of the resources of local villages and villagers, site-specific information systems, expert systems, etc.;
Provision of early warning systems about disease/ pest problems, information regarding rural development programmes and crop insurances, postharvest technology, etc.;
Facilitation of land records and online registration services;
Improved marketing of milk and milk products;
Services providing information to farmers regarding farm business and management;
Increased efficiency and productivity of cooperative societies through the computer communication network and the latest database technology;
Tele-education for farmers;
Websites established by agricultural research institutes, making the latest information available to extension (knowledge) workers and obtaining their feedback.

2.3.1. Some exclusive agricultural portals are

Despite the huge potential to harness ICT for agricultural development, only a few isolated projects have been initiated in India and a few in other parts of the world. Interestingly, many of these projects were started by NGOs, private organisations, cooperative bodies and governmental organisations other than agricultural departments. This shows the apathy of agricultural development departments towards incorporating ICT into their day-to-day activities. To formulate a strategy for overall agricultural development, the isolated ICT projects need to be studied and the experiences generated must be documented in order to draw lessons for the future.

Figure 3: TNAU Agritech portal model

3. Benefits of Portal

Ability to deploy existing prophecy open tasks to the web
E-portal is designed to be easily incorporated into corporate website
Enables company data to be accessed by public
External users maintain and enquire their own information
Prophecy Open Tasks can also be configured to appear at the same time on the screen, enabling companies to maintain their own corporate Portal style web systems.
E-portal allows deployment of an existing task from the server to the internet without any modifications made to the task.

CONCLUSION

A good portal can also support knowledge sharing among the members. The number of online portals continues to increase. It is believed that three quarters of people who are searching for any type of information, use the internet and online portals. One key aspect of portal is the cost. Companies spend less to publish or advertise information or job vacancies on the portals or websites, as compared to the use of other media such as newspaper or job fairs. Furthermore, online access to information is very fast, and saves time. For example, once the employers upload the job vacancy on the portal, the jobseekers are able to view it and send in their resume. Therefore, cost and time savings are the two significant advantage of any portal.

you can view video on e- Portal / Agri- Portal

Web links

Akhter, F, (2006). ―The Impact of Foreign Languages, Customs, Business Policies, and Infrastructure Factors on the Growth of B2C E-Commerce‖. In IADIS International Conference e-Commerce. Barcelona, Spain, December 09, 2006.
Akhter, F. Hobbs, D. and Maamar, Z. (2004). ―Determine the Factors which Engender Customer Trust in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Electronic Commerce‖ in Proceedings of IEEE Conference on E-Commerce Technology, San Diego, California, USA, 2004.
Boye, J. 1999. Are all portals the same? Internet related technologies. URL:
http://tech.irt.org/articles/js147/[viewed October 2, 2002]
Jay Van Vark (1997), Ecommerce and the security myth, The real security issues of ecommerce, Journal of Apple Technology, Vol. 13, No. 11, 1997
Maedche A, Stab S, Stajanovic N, Studer R, Sure Y, (2003). Semantic Portal- The Seal Approach in Spinning the Semantic Web. London, MIT Press, pp 317-359.
Melzer, C. 1999. Enterprise information portals. South African journal of informationmanagement, 1(2/3):1URL: http://general.rau.ac.za/infosci/raujournal/vol1.nr2.01_09_99/default.asp?to=webs [viewed October3, 2002]
Udaykiran Vallamsetty, Krishna Kant and Prasant Mohapatra (2003). Characterization of E-Commerce Traffic, Electronic Commerce Research, 3: 167–192 (2003)
Udo, G. J. (2001). Privacy and Security Concern as Major Barrier for E-commerce: A Survey Study. Information Management and Computer Security, Vol.9, No. 4, pp 165-175.