Developing Content for My VT

Channel Construction

My.vt.edu supports seven channel content formats:

My VT is based on the uPortal framework, which is an opensource portal framework developed and maintained by universities. The uPortal framework can transform XML to support wireless devices or to enhance accessibility. All channel content should be provided using an XML specification whenever possible. If you build a portal channel that complies with one of the supported XML specifications, then your content or service will be available to a larger audience. Legacy Web channels that do use HTML may not be available to all users. Support for legacy web content is included and can be used in cases where it is costly, difficult or impossible to re-engineer Web content as a channel. One example is where the output is the product of a legacy or purchased software product.

Metadata and Channels

Metadata is important for all types of channels, especially dynamic channels such as reports or application interfaces because it allows users to find and access them. The MyVT portal uses the Dublin Core encoded with the XML RDF specification. We require at least a channel title, description, and keywords (keywords should include MyVT category name(s) in which the channel should appear), and strongly encourage you to incorporate additional metadata as appropriate. You can use the metadata generator in the Computing Webmaster's toolkit to generate metadata in the appropriate format.

My VT roles:

• Alumni
• Faculty
• Staff
• Student

Be sure to include all the appropriate category headings and audience information in the metadata for your channel. The webmaster of the portal will use this inforation to determine what categories your channel should be listed in, and this will also help users if they search for channels.