AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ADOPTION OF CAMPUS

PORTALS IN SAUDI AND UK UNIVERSITIES

Mohammed Altayar, N. Ben Fairweather and Neil McBride

Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, U.K.

Keywords: Portals, Campus Portals, IT adoption, Bilingual Portals, Universities, Saudi Arabia, U.K.

Abstract: Enterprise Information Portals (EIPs) have become crucial components in contemporary organisations, and

universities and other higher education institutions are not exempt. While there are many studies concerning

the adoption, implementation and utilisation of EIPs in organisations, there are few studies that touch this

issue in the academic environment. The aim of this paper is to report initial findings from an in-progress

research project on the adoption of campus portals in some Saudi and UK universities. This study adopts a

qualitative research approach based on multiple case studies. A research methodology was designed to

conduct the research and to collect data through semi-structured interviews and documentation, and then

analysed using various qualitative data analysis techniques such as coding and categorising, cross-interview

analysis and document analysis. The findings of the study show that there are many factors that affect the

adoption of campus portals such as: organisational factors, innovation factors, economic factors, technical

factors and environmental factors. Finally, the paper proposes an initial model and concludes with the main

findings and provides some recommendations and suggestions for further research.

1 INTRODUCTION

The use of information and communication

technology (ICT) in universities has become

imperative to support business and organisational

activities. With the massive advance of web

technology, and especially the emergence of Internet

technologies, a recent phenomenon that has spread

throughout universities is what is called Enterprise

Information Portals or Campus Portals. It can be said

that there is a radical transformation taking place in

the academic environment. For example, it has been

reported that contemporary higher education

institutions operate in complex and competitive

environments. Enterprise portals are said to organise

and provide information from a variety of sources

and systems in ways personalised and customised to

various groups of users in a cost-effective way

(Etesse, 2003). Consequently, universities and other

higher education institutions are rushing to develop

Web-based information systems, called campus

portals. Research shows that campus portals have

received wide spread attention in the academic

environment (e.g. Li and Wood, 2005; Klein, 2006;

Bolton, 2008). The primary aim of this paper is to

present data from literature review and preliminary

case studies on the adoption of campus portals in

some Saudi and UK universities. There is lack of

research that focuses specifically on the factors

affecting the adoption of campus portals in the

academic environment. The rest of this paper is

organised as follows. First, it provides a literature

review covering the portal technology in the

academic environment. Then, the paper describes

the research methodology used. Finally, the results

and findings are presented and discussed in the light

of the literature, and then the paper finishes with

some conclusions and recommendations.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

The concept "portal" is usually associated with

internet, intranet and web technologies. It shares

common characteristics with these technologies

either technically or functionally. Since the

development of internet, intranet and web

technologies, new terms and concepts have emerged

in the market and in the literature as well. This has

made it quite difficult to identify the boundaries of

167

Altayar M., Ben Fairweather N. and McBride N.

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ADOPTION OF CAMPUS PORTALS IN SAUDI AND UK UNIVERSITIES.

DOI: 10.5220/0002772901670174

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technology (WEBIST 2010), page

ISBN: 978-989-674-025-2

each term. Thus, each term is defined differently.

For example, Fustes (2005) argues that enterprise

portals in some ways can be seen as a development

of intranet portals. Similarly, Gu and Salvendy

(2002) point out that Enterprise Information Portals

(EIPs) have evolved from intranet portals and as a

new capacity for intranets. What is more

Benbya et. al (2004) state that “the terms Employees

Portals, Enterprise Intranet Portals, Corporate

Portals, Business-to-Employees Portals, and

Business-to-Employees systems are sometimes used

interchangeably as synonyms”. Other researchers

have provided different definitions. For example,

Smith (2004) defines an enterprise portal as “an

infrastructure providing secure, customisable,

personalisable, integrated access to dynamic content

from a variety of sources, in a variety of source

formats, wherever it is needed". In addition, Detlor

(2000) defines it as "single-point Web browser

interfaces used within organisations to promote the

gathering, sharing and dissemination of information

throughout the enterprise".

An examination of the literature on campus

portals shows that the literature falls into two main

categories: 1) the literature (which can be described

as the intuitive literature) that discusses the promise

of the technology, its advantages and applications,

and 2) the research and studies that have highlighted

some issues regarding the adoption, implementation

and utilisation of campus portals technology (real

case studies). With respect to the former, the

applications and benefits of campus portals have

been reported widely in the literature. These benefits

and applications can be seen in terms of time, cost,

speed, effort and efficiency. Franklin (2004)

described some of these advantages such as cost

reduction, improve efficiency, improve customer

service, developing new systems, increase Return

On Investment (ROI), systems integration and

improve communication. In addition, the range of

services and resources that can be provided via an

institutional portal are varied. These include:

institutional news, personal information and records,

course materials, links to other services and

resources, timetables and calendar (Pearce, 2003).

Other research and studies have also been

reported in the literature. For example, Li and Wood

(2005) found that portals have received wide spread

attention in the academic environment. Similar

findings have been reported by Klein (2006) and

Bolton (2008). Furthermore, a number of published

research studies have proposed various development

methodologies suitable for campus portal adoption

and implementation, for example (Zhu et al. 2004;

Fuangvut, 2005; Bahrami et al., 2007).

In order to have successful adoption and

implementation of ICT in organisations, several

factors need to be taken into consideration.

According to Bouwman et al., (2005) such factors

can be related to the organisational perspective, the

technological perspective, the economic perspective

and the user perspective. These factors could have

positive or negative effects on ICT adoption and

implementation. Concerning the portal technology,

Franklin (2004) emphasises the importance of

developing supporting institutional information

technology infrastructure and architecture. A study

by Li and Wood (2005) has identified several

challenges associated with portal adoption. These

include: the integration of the portal with other

applications, implementation of a single-sign-on and

security issues. Jafari and Sheehan (2003) stress the

role of cooperation and coordination between

campus units and departments, because campus

portals bring together campus constituents who

seldom interact and whose interests are often

different. Other writers acknowledge the dominant

role of establishing policies and strategies when

developing a campus portal (Thomas, 2003; Bunt

and Pennock, 2006). In addition, some authors

emphasise the importance of understanding users’

needs and requirements (Pearce, Carpenter and

Martin, 2003; Frazee, Frazee and Sharpe, 2003).

Rahim (2007) investigated the barriers to using

business-to-employee portals in a university setting.

He found that weak management support and a

distributed model of responsibility for the portal

were the main barriers. Finally, Bolton (2008)

published a review of portal software in the UK

Higher Education context. He found that the major

challenges faced by UK universities when rolling

out the campus portal were time, resources and

business engagement.

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This study adopts a qualitative research approach

based on multiple-case studies of the adoption of

campus portals in some Saudi and UK universities.

The qualitative approach was considered appropriate

for various reasons. To begin with, the overall aim

of this research is to study the adoption of campus

portals in particular organisations. According to

Hunter (2004) the main focus of qualitative

researchers is the personnel involved in

organisations. Thus, qualitative researchers try to

WEBIST 2010 - 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

168

understand, interpret and explain research problems

in terms of the words that people assign to them.

Bryman (2008) mentions that in order to understand

the outside world, researchers have to interact

directly with its subject matter. This can be seen as

an advantage in qualitative research as it allows

researchers to probe more information and clarify

any ambiguity to participants that may exist. What is

more, it has been argued that qualitative research

helps researchers to address and answer "how" and

"what" questions, which in turn will help the

researcher to understand the nature and complexity

of the process taking place (Creswell, 2007). This

study seeks to answer such questions, for instance:

1) how are campus portals being adopted in higher

education institutions? 2) What are the factors that

affect the adoption of campus portals in universities?

Before embarking on data collection, a pilot

study was conducted as a part of this research in

Saudi Arabia and the UK between October and

November 2008. The feedback of the pilot study was

used to modify and enhance the instruments and to

develop some aspects of the interview questions and

techniques. The fieldwork was conducted between

January and June 2009. Data were collected through

semi-structured interviews and analysis of some

documents. Sixteen interviews were conducted with

IT staff who were involved with portal adoption at

five universities, three in Saudi Arabia and two in

the UK.

Table 1: Methods of data collection.

1. Semi-structured interviews

Uni Countr

No Role

A Saudi

Portal manager, IT

staff.

B Saudi

Project manager,

system developers

C Saudi

Project manager,

IS desi

ners.

D UK

IT manger, system

analysts

E UK

Portal manager, web

designer.

= 16

2. Documentation

pe of document

umbe

Portals policies and strate

ies. 4

Reports. 7

Official PowerPoint Presentations. 8

Articles and memos 5

Total 24

These include: IT managers, systems developers, IS

designers and webmasters. For confidentiality

purposes, the researchers can not name the

universities studied, instead, they are referred here as

A, B, C, D and E. The average interview lasted for

about 50 minutes. The interviews were recorded,

transcribed and analysed individually using various

qualitative data analysis techniques such as coding

and categorising, cross-interview analysis and

document analysis. Table 1 illustrates the methods

of data collection in this study.

4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This section reports the findings of the study which

are interpreted and discussed in the light of the

literature and related work.

4.1 Factors Affecting the Adoption

Process

According to Bouwman et al. (2005) there are many

factors that can affect the adoption of information

systems in organisations. These include

organisational perspective, the technological

perspective, the economic perspective and the user

perspective. It seems that these factors play a

dominant role in the adoption and implementation

processes. An analysis of the empirical evidence

suggests that organisational factors, innovation

factors, economic factors, technical factors and

environmental factors were the most important

factors that affected portals adoption in the

universities studied.

4.1.1 Organisational Factors

Regarding the organisational factors, top

management support was seen as an important issue.

Top management support is a very critical factor in

ensuring IS success adoption and implementation.

Many researchers have acknowledged the

importance of top management support (for example

Bajwa,

Rai, and Brennan, 1998; Remus, 2007). Our

study shows that top management support is a very

important factor. A difference between the two

countries can be observed. For instance, it is

interesting to know that Chancellors in Saudi

universities are involved directly with portal

development by chairing the portal committee. This

is seen as being good for the IT departments in the

universities. A vice president of the portal

development appreciated the Chancellor’s

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169

involvement when he said “we have got top

management support to establish and develop the

campus portal. This support is represented by the

Chancellor who was/is so enthusiastic about the

project and he is chairing the portal committee. He

provided us with unlimited support, financially,

strategically or otherwise depending upon our

needs”. With respect to the UK universities, top

management support was seen as an important

factor. However, the level of involvement of top

management is less than in the Saudi cases.

Furthermore, it is noteworthy that when top

management do not see the portal as priority, it is

unlikely that the portal project will be given special

attention by the top management. This issue was

raised by one of the interviewees. He mentioned that

“we did not get top management support because the

portal is not seen yet as a priority to the university”.

From this perspective it can be argued that

inadequate management commitment and support

towards the portal could have a negative effect on

the portal adoption. This agrees with the findings

from other studies on campus portals including

(Rahim, Sugianto and Shameem, 2005 and Rahim,

2007).

Another interesting issue raised by some of the

interviewees in both countries is the issue of who

owns and is responsible for data and information

when an institution adopts a portal? A participant at

a UK university expressed his view as the following:

“the portal brings stuff together and across

organisational boundaries in the university and that

sometimes is complicated. Sometimes people think

that you will take some work and responsibility from

them. Also, there is the issue of who is responsible

for the data when you bring the data in one place?

Who in charge of it? Who manages it?”. Another

participant at a Saudi university has mentioned a

similar view and said “the fact that the historical

approach used in developing IT in our university

was a critical barrier for us especially when it

comes to put the content in the portal. For example,

the library system developed their IT and content,

the registry department would look for their IT and

content etc... Then we had to deal with various

issues like who has the right over the content, who

manages it etc...”. It is interesting to observe such

claims, and as we have argued earlier in order to

ensure a successful portal project, and to minimise

tensions that may arise regarding data and

information ownership between organisational units

and members, all parties in the university should be

involved in portal adoption. It can be said that the

role of cooperation and coordination between all

parties and constituents in the university could be

very significant here. In this regard, Jafari and

Sheehan (2003) stress the role and importance of

coordination between campus units and departments,

because campus portals bring together campus

constituents who seldom interact with each other and

whose interests are often different. This is because

the nature of the portal, as it is a cross-functional

project and it touches all parties in the campus. This

agrees with the view of Bunt and Pennock (2006)

who claim that “the fact that a portal cuts across

many sectors of the campus delivering services and

information that transcend organisational

boundaries, means that implementing a portal raises

important questions about jurisdiction, responsibility

and authority”.

Another organisational factor that affects the

decision whether to build the portal in house or to

buy a ready made product is the availability of

qualified personnel that are well trained and

specialised in the development of ICT. For example,

the Saudi universities studied tend to outsource the

portal development to a third party, whereas the UK

ones tend to develop portals in-house. With respect

to the Saudi side, it was clear that the shortage of

skilful and qualified people was a main issue. This

was explicitly mentioned by the respondents. For

example, one of the interviewees stated that “we do

not have enough manpower and qualified personnel

such as programmers, technical staff and other

knowledgeable people to develop the portal in-

house”. In contrast, the respondents in the UK did

not mention such reasons and they were confident

about their IT skills. In sum, one explanation of this

difference between Saudi and UK universities might

be due to the fact that the developing countries lag

behind their counterparts in the developed world in

terms of technology advancement, experience and

skills, and they do not have much in-house technical

expertise. Therefore, this could affect the decision

on how the technology is adopted.

4.1.2 Innovation Factors

According to McGowan & Madey (1998) innovation

factors include perceived benefits and compatibility.

Many researchers have identified the benefits

associated with enterprise portal adoption and

implementation (Looney and Lyman, 2000; Daigle

and Cuocco, 2002; Frazee et al., 2003; Graves and

Hale, 2003; Franklin, 2004; Li and Wood, 2005).

These include: cost reduction, improve efficiency,

improve customer service, developing new systems,

increase Return On Investment (ROI), systems

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integration and improve communication. Our study

shows that universities studied perceive many

benefits associated with portal adoption. Although

the benefits perceived are varied, most interviewees

agree that a campus portal is a great technology for

improving access to information and services,

providing single sign-on to a wide range of systems

and applications and enhancing the communication

process. One of the interviewees mentioned that “the

main two reasons that motivated us to develop the

portal were: to provide a unified gateway to the

University’s Web-based services, and to improve

communication process within the University.”

Another respondent appreciated the single sign-on

feature in the portal, when he said “one main

advantage of the portal is to provide a single sign-on

logging that provides access to information and

services from one place”. It can be argued that these

advantages, benefits and outputs of enterprise portals

are important to the academic institutions since

contemporary higher education institutions operate

in a complex information environment. This tends to

confirm the view of Etesse (2003) reported earlier

that campus portals are great technologies for

academic institutions to organise and provide

information from a variety of sources and systems in

ways personalised and customised to various groups

of users in a cost-effective way.

With respect to managing the content, there are

several issues that have been reported such as

managing, supporting and updating content. For

example, providing a campus portal with two

languages (a bilingual portal) represents a key

challenge to universities, and this issue is found in

all Saudi cases studied. Saudi universities provide

campus portals into two languages: Arabic and

English. This is because The English language is the

second most widely used language in the country

and some universities teach some courses and

modules in English. This requires many resources to

be allocated. For instance, qualified staff speaking

two languages, translation policies, standards and

strategies, tools and applications, money to pay for

personnel doing the job. These issues and others

have been explicitly mentioned by many participants

in the Saudi context. For example, a webmaster

described this issue as follows “we provide our

portal in two languages: Arabic and English...

Having English as a second language requires

resources, qualified people for translation,

mechanism and policies for the translation process.

It is very challenging. Another interviewee at a

different university mentioned that “we have the

portal in two languages Arabic and English, and this

is not an easy task and is very labour intensive

process. In fact, it is not like that if we have to

provide the portal with one language.” In contrast,

this issue does not apply to most UK universities

because they provide the portal in English only. To

some extent, it can be said that universities in

general who provide a campus portal with more than

one language will find it difficult to manage, support

and handle the content. This is a significant finding

and it raises two important issues. First, universities

that provide a portal with more than one language

especially in the developing countries should

address this issue and pay attention to it from the

outset of the project. Second, effective mechanisms

should be put in place to address this issue. As the

content within the portal will grow over time, this

issue becomes more and more significant. This

requires the establishment of translation policies,

standards and strategies, tools and applications,

qualified staff speaking two languages, money, and

other resources.

4.1.3 Economic Factors

The economic aspect of ICT is mainly concerned

with cost and benefits that are associated with the

adoption of ICT (Bouwman et al. 2005). Our study

shows that there are many economic factors that are

associated with campus portals adoption. These

include: cost reductions, increase Return On

Investment (ROI), project funding, resources,

maintenance and running cost. All interviewees

agreed that a portal technology is a great solution for

saving money and cutting cost. A project officer at a

UK university pointed out that “the portal saves the

university money. Take for example the university

regulations. Before the portal, every student was

given a copy of the regulations. But now it can be

accessed online. So, for 7 years we saved about

50000 copies every year which is a half million

pound”. Another participant at a Saudi university

described this issue as follows “in the adoption

phase, we did a business case and evaluated how

much the portal would save us money. After the

portal went live, we saw many benefits, include

reduced printing and distribution costs, cut in

communication cost and decrease in the cost of how

people find information”. Another issue identified is

the funding and resources allocated to the project.

This issue applies specifically to UK universities. A

portal manager reflected on this “the portal project

is a huge investment. Top management in the

university have not seen it yet as priority, and we

didn’t get enough funding and resources. I‘ve got

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171

only three staff and they are busy doing other things

and we have small amount of time and money to

spend on the project”. In contrast, participants from

Saudi universities did not mention project funding

issues during the adoption and implementation

phases. As we mentioned early top management

support in Saudi universities was a key enabler and

the direct involvement of Chancellors had facilitated

many aspects of the project including funding and

resources. However, some participants expressed

concerns about the cost of maintenance and support

for long term. A system developer mentioned that

“because we bought a ready made solution, we had

to sign a contract with the vendor to do the

maintenance and support and we have to pay for

this. If the funding stops, I don’t know what the

situation will be”.

4.1.4 Technical Factors

Concerning the technical factor, many issues have

been identified. These include: the existing IT

infrastructure, systems integration, compatibility and

IT vision and strategy. It was found that the existing

IT infrastructure has affected the project

development, especially in the Saudi context. For

instance, a web designer commented “regarding IT

infrastructure, we had to make many changes so that

we got to the new system. We had to get new

hardware and software because the previous

equipment was not compatible with the portal”. In

addition, this issue is also acknowledged by an IT

manager at another university when he mentioned

“the IT infrastructure in the university was not good

enough when we developed the portal. We had to

buy some new software and hardware or at least

replace them with new stuff”. With respect to UK

universities, IT infrastructure was an important issue

to them and contributed positively to the portal

development. A portal manager pointed out that “I

think the IT infrastructure plays a key role in any

organisation when a new system is introduced. We

were very fortunate that we have a very good and

very fast internet connection and the network in the

campus is first class”. One reason that can explain

the variation around this issue might be the generally

poorer information infrastructure in the developing

world compared with the developed world.

Systems integration was one of the common

issues, recognised by all interviewees. This agrees

with the findings from other studies, for example the

study by Li and Wood (2005). A project manager at

a UK university stated that “the systems that work in

the university have evolved over time separately, so

they have different standards and models. It took us

long time and a lot of work to unify the data between

various systems”. A similar answer has been

reported by a web designer at a Saudi university

when he said “we were having different products

and systems and at the same time we were dealing

with different vendors. When we were planning to

adopt the portal this was a critical issue: I mean the

integration”. This is not surprising given the fact

that systems and applications integration is a

common problem and could be found in many

organisations. In addition, Li and Wood (2005) point

to the fact that portals are in their infancy in terms of

evolution and development and there are still

immature portal software products. Thus, it is not

surprising that organisations could find integration is

problematic. Therefore, particular attention should

be devoted to this issue.

4.1.5 Environmental Factors

Environmental factors are those factors that are

present in the outside environment of organisations.

An analysis of the findings has shown that the

competitiveness between universities influences the

decision to adopt a campus portal. This issue was

mentioned by all interviewees in both countries.

This agrees with the fact that campus portals have

become commonplace in the academic environment.

(Li and Wood, 2005; Klein, 2006; Bolton, 2008). A

project manager at a Saudi university claims that

“nowadays portals have become a key technology in

universities’ IT infrastructure and from my

experience it is now difficult to operate without it.

Universities around the world are investing a great

deal of money and resources to develop portals, so

that you have to go with the stream” Another

participant from a UK university said “one reason

that motivated us to develop the portal was the fact

that the rest of the world liked the portal too. Most

universities have developed or are currently

planning to have one. Today's tech-savvy students

are looking for places to study where they can have

good technology to enhance their educational

experiences”. It can be said that responding to the

external environment could be seen as a motivation

for developing a campus portal to attract students

and enhance customer satisfaction. In addition, the

presence of competition in the local environment can

be seen as a significant motivation of technological

innovation in organisations. Meanwhile, it has been

claimed that “portal services are competitively

critical in the context of higher education

institutions...and they are a keystone in any

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competitive strategy today portals inject immediate

customer satisfaction, the basis for reputation into

the competitive equation affecting long-term

prestige” (Graves and Hale, 2003, p. 39). In Saudi

cases, the general trend in Saudi Arabia towards the

adoption and implementation of ICT projects was

seen by some interviewees as a key enabler. A

manager of systems development mentions that “the

general trend in the country and the orientation of

the government toward the transformation of e-

government has a positive impact. This helped us

convincing some key ministries such as The Ministry

of Finance to allocate money, funding and resources

toward the portal project and we were very

fortunate to witness this period”. A recent report by

Ministry of Communication and Information

Technology (2008) has revealed that the total IT

market in Saudi Arabia in 2008 was $3 billion and is

expected to grow to nearly $5 billion by 2012. This

finding suggests that there is a strong trend in the

country towards IT projects especially given the

falling costs of hardware which can have an impact

on organisations in terms of allocating money and

resources.

5 THE PROPOSED MODEL

Figure 1 presents the proposed model for the factors

affecting the adoption of campus portals in

universities.

Based on the findings of this investigation and

after reviewing the literature, the researchers were

able to identify several factors that influence the

adoption of portal technology.

The researchers believe that many of these factors

should be taken into consideration when universities

contemplate a campus portal.

Due to the limitation of the space in this paper, we

have not presented the full details of the model;

however, most of these factors were discussed in the

findings and discussion section. The proposed model

will be revised and improved according to the

findings in later stages.

6 CONCLUSIONS

As with any research, this study is subject to a

number of limitations. First, the current study is

bounded and situated in a specific context: the

academic context. Therefore, it would be interesting

to study other contexts and sectors. Second, this

Figure 1: Factors affecting the adoption of campus portals.

research is restricted to two countries and cultures:

the UK and Saudi Arabia. It can be said that the

nature of case study research is not intended to

provide results that can be generalised, rather it aims

to explore a particular issue in a given situation.

Thus, it would be interesting to study other

countries. This paper has provided an insight into the

adoption of campus portals. Many conclusions can

be drawn from the analysed data. First, the paper has

reviewed some definitions of ‘portal’ and it was

found that up to now there is no consensus about the

definition of portal. In addition, the paper has

reviewed some related work with respect to portal

technology in the academic context. The review has

shown that campus portals have received widespread

attention in the academic environment. Furthermore,

the paper has provided some useful information and

highlighted some interesting common issues and

differences in approach between UK and Saudi

adoptions. Finally, the main factors that have been

identified are: organisational factors, innovation

factors, economic factors, technical factors and

environmental factors.

Organisational Factors

Top management/institutional support

Organisation needs-Communication -

Organisation vision and strategy -

Cooperation and coordination - Qualified

staff - IT development in organisations.

Environmental Factors

External cooperation and coordination -

Competitiveness- Trends of portal

technolo

in the market.

Technical Factors

Current IT infrastructure - Systems

integration - Compatibility with existing

hardware and software - ICT vision and

strategy - Technical support.

Innovation Factors

Perceived benefits - Compatibility

Portal development: to build /to buy -

Portal management and governance -

Content management.

Cam

us Portal Ado

tion

Economic Factors

Maintenance and running cost - Project

funding and Resources - Increase ROI.

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