Portalware

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Definition

Portalware is software to create various kinds of portals through a relatively simple and installation/configuration process. Portals are a kind of web application.

Daniel K. Schneider thinks that typical portalware for educational use can be installed in an hour and be used after an extra hour of configuration work. Fine tuning may require an extra week of work (or more if the software doesn't work as advertised). In any case, we clearly want to make a distinction between portalware and toolkits to build portals (web application frameworks).

As increasingly powerful alternative, see rich internet applications

Principle

Portalware is a kind of server software that is usually installed within a webserver / database / scripting language combo, e.g. LAMP.

Portalware should not be confused with so-called web application frameworks, i.e. software stacks that are used to build portalware, rich internet applications, etc.

List of portalware

(incomplete, used in education ....)

Small Content management systems

We refer to content management systems in the more narrow sense, i.e. systems specifically designed to edit contents through a "structured" interface, contents that must fit designed templates, information that is more organized than just lists (like in blogs, or news engines).

Popular open source systems

• typo3: PHP and MySQL
• ezPublish: PHP
• SPIP: PHP and MySQL
• Plone (built on top of Zope)

Big systems

• An example would be Vignette (Wikipedia article). These usually cost over 10K and require rather substantial development investment.

Small Portals (CMS/CMF)

We call most of these C3MS (since they allow to manage content, communities and collaboration). In terms of pure CMS functionality, most are rather weak. Below is a list of popular open source software. Most systems can be used out of the box to publish articles in blog-like fashion and as Content Management Framework (adding custom contents through various ways).

News engines

• slash: originally used for slashdot. Perl & MySQL

Popular php/mysql workhorses from the late 1990's (both CMS and framework)

(Somewhat older, hundreds of modules, but active projects)

• phpnuke: PHP - one of the oldest systems. Still alive.
• Postnuke: PHP & MySQL - PostNuke didn't manage to crank out new good versions in the last few years until 2009. It was renamed Zikula in 2008. Seems to catch up now (1/2010).
• Drupal (drupal home page): PHP & MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQL server. Probably the best bet for educators currently (2008)
• XOOPS: PHP
• plone: Python/Zope
• Mambo Server: PHP and MySQL
• Joomla: Popular fork of mambo server. PHP and MySQL. A good bet since this system is very popular and well documented.

More recent and probable simpler systems

• CMS Made Simple (CMSMS) - PHP/MySQL. Probably one the best relatively simple systems (2008/2009).
• CMSimple Content Management: no database needed, PHP powered
• glFusion. PhP/MySQL. Seems to be one of the easier systems to administer ([http://demo.glfusion.org/ live demo site)
• ModX PhP/MySQL. A popular more recent system.

Other

• Silex (available on source forge. Probably the first decent Flash-based CMS - Daniel K. Schneider 09:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC).
• midgard: PHP
• DotNetNuke: Microsot .Net - Probably the most popular open source and free portal with MS technology.

Big portals

• uPortal A kind of enterprise portal made for education
• Jahia Integrated Enterprise Content & Portal Management software. Adopted by some Swiss educational institutions.
  • Jahia at Wikipedia

"Web 2.0" systems

Not sure what that web 2.0 means, but we usually mean a subset of social software and integrators like webtops. It also relates to things like the virtual office (aka office 2.0), etc. Most well known systems are:

• wikis
• blogs

Special purpose portwalware for education

Many portals designed for education (both e-learning and blended designs) do have CMS components. In particular an authoring tool to edit educational materials.

• LMS
• LCMS
• Course management systems

Not that these systems are the only ones used in education, you may use all of the above in particular in more constructivist designs, e.g. project-oriented learning or writing-to-learn.

Educational frameworks

(something in between educationl portalware and web application frameworks

• E-framework

Security

I have been using portalware for long years now and I never met any php/mysql based application that was totally safe. Sometimes the central engine is usafe (e.g. we had problems with Dokeos or PostNuke) or installed extensions are - Daniel K. Schneider

To prevent hacking, spamming, defacing etc.

• Upgrade frequently (each time an upgrade is out)
• Register with the makers in order to be noticed about security updates

Alternatively:

• Do not install portalware, but rather use on-line services (e.g. Ning for a community portal)

Links:

• How They Hack Your Website: Overview of Common Techniques (CMSWire, March 2008)

Links

• Content management framework (Wikipedia). I'd call some it just portalware.
• List of content management systems
• OpenSourceCMS: you can try a portalware before installing it
• cms matrix: useful to compare the features of different CMS
• CMS Wire - CMS Products (see also the list of lists
• Website (Wikipedia). Lists some different kinds of websites.