Enterprise Information Portals (EIPs) have become crucial components in contemporary organisations, including universities. Campus portals (CPs) have found their way into the academic environment and universities are increasingly implementing these technologies. While there are many studies concerning EIPs in organisations, there are few studies that touch this issue in the academic environment. This study investigates factors affecting the adoption, implementation and utilisation of CPs from the implementers’ and users’ perspectives. It adopts a comparative approach based on multiple case studies in some Saudi and UK universities. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and documentation, which was analysed using hermeneutics and other qualitative data analysis techniques. Findings show that adoption and implementation of CPs are affected by factors including: technological, organisational, environmental, financial, innovation and user-related factors. Results from the users perspective reveal that although CPs are perceived to be useful in terms of accessing information and services, there are many concerns related to system, content and service quality. Moreover, the study has identified two main gaps between users and the implementers: a communication gap and an expectations gap. Consequently, users complained about a lack of user involvement and poor communication. Findings are interpreted using elements from institutional theory. Development of CPs is affected by many institutional factors such as coercive, mimetic, normative and competitive pressures. Furthermore, the introduction of CPs could lead to a clash of institutional logics among various stakeholders. Institutional arguments are likely to arise between portal teams and other campus constituents such as service providers and users. This study has three major contributions. First, it used institutional theory to investigate CPs adoption and implementation. As a result, it extends the line of research on the use of this theory to study IS in organisations. Second, it responds to calls from other IS researchers to study portals by conducting in-depth field investigation using qualitative research. Third, it addresses issues related to the development of bilingual portals in universities.

Thesis advisor: William Ames / This thesis deals with the problem of visibility culling in interactive three-dimensional environments. Included in this thesis is a discussion surrounding the issues involved in both constructing and rendering three-dimensional environments. A renderer must sort the objects in a three-dimensional scene in order to draw the scene correctly. The Binary Space Partitioning (BSP) algorithm can sort objects in three-dimensional space using a tree based data structure. This thesis introduces the BSP algorithm in its original context before discussing its other uses in three-dimensional rendering algorithms. Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) is an efficient interactive modeling technique that enables an artist to create complex three-dimensional environments by performing Boolean set operations on convex volumes. After providing a general overview of CSG, this thesis describes an efficient algorithm for computing CSG expression trees via the use of a BSP tree. When rendering a three-dimensional environment, only a subset of objects in the environment is visible to the user. We refer to this subset of objects as the Potentially Visible Set (PVS). This thesis presents an algorithm that divides an environment into a network of convex cellular volumes connected by invisible portal regions. A renderer can then utilize this network of cells and portals to compute a PVS via a depth first traversal of the scene graph in real-time. Finally, this thesis discusses how a simulation engine might exploit this data structure to provide dynamic collision detection against the scene graph. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Computer Science. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis (M.S. in Computer Science)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Don Brutzman, Curt Blair, Barb Helfer. Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-99). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; [256] p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Ed.(RGO)--Universiteit van Pretoria, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-71).

Not available / text

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Also available in print.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Regensburg, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-164).

published_or_final_version / abstract / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

D. Litt. et Phil. / Today, more and more organisations are adopting the use of the Internet and webbased technologies in the management of and provision of access to information and knowledge resources and services in digital formats. However, it appears that innovative use of the web is more pronounced in corporate organisations. For example, corporate organisations are using portals or sophisticated websites to conduct electronic commerce via the web and provide access to both internal and external information resources and services, accessed via the Internet, intranets, and extranets. The view of the researcher is that innovative use of the Internet and web-based technologies, such as portals, should not be the domain of the corporate world alone. The focus of this thesis is, therefore, to establish the potential application possibilities of portals in other types of organisations, especially agricultural research organisations in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The main research problem addressed in this thesis was What is the nature and application possibility of agricultural information portals in the provision of webbased, value-added information services for researchers? To address the above research problem, literature relating to the historical development of the Internet and the World Wide Web, intranet and extranet applications in organisations, as well as portals and their applications, was reviewed. In addition, a study was made of international trends regarding the provision of access to digital agricultural information resources and services via the web, and a questionnaire survey was conducted to establish whether it was necessary to use portals to provide access to digital-based agricultural information resources and services in agricultural research organisations in the SADC region. ii Resulting from the literature reviews, the study of websites of international agricultural organisations, and the survey on the need for portals in agricultural research organisations in the SADC region, the study established that: · There are several potential applications of portals in agricultural research organisations. This led to the definition of the nature and major components of the type of portal that could serve the needs of researchers in agricultural research organisations. · There is a need for portals in agricultural research organisations in the SADC region. The current use of the web in these organisations in the region is largely limited to the development of brochureware types of websites, providing access to information contained in the organisations’ brochures. Therefore, there is need to upgrade from basic Web sites to advanced sites or portals, and the study concluded that in this regard there is a need for clear guidelines to assist agricultural research organisations to plan the deployment of their information portals. Currently, most organisations are using ad hoc approaches when developing their Web sites. The dissertation, furthermore, develops the definition of an agricultural information portal as a web-based application that is accessed via the intranet or extranet and provides a personalised and adaptive interface that enables agricultural researchers to discover, track, and interact with colleagues and other people, software applications, information resources, services and tools relevant to their research interests and work. Taking into account the major components and definition of an agricultural information portal, the study proposes guidelines for use in planning the deployment of portals in agricultural research organisations. The proposed guidelines are independent of specific portal design or development methodology, application domains, and techniques.