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The planning and organizing committee for the Portal Conference has recommended that the Portal 2010 conference be deferred for this year - with a format change later in the year. A number of factors have led to this decision, all of which center around the streamlining of information technology budgets during these trying financial times for higher education.
While interest in the conference remains high, we feel it is best to provide institutions the opportunity to recover from the financial adjustments that many have been forced to make in the past year. The Portal Conference has established a reputation for high quality and standards that we felt would be difficult to attain this year. As such, we would rather defer the conference than lower the standards and reputation that we have worked hard to develop.
To that end, in order to maintain the momentum and the brand, the committee have recommended that we look into providing an online/virtual Portal Conference experience later this year, with late September or early October as a possible timeframe. We are currently envisioning a ½ day event with a few carefully selected sessions presented to a world-wide audience.
The committee is looking for members of the higher education community interested in helping us determine what this online/virtual experience is. If you are interested in helping with the development of this experience, please contact us at malbert@gettysburg.edu - we ask that only employees of higher education institutions participate in this planning.
We would especially like to reach out and thank Phil Goldstein and Ali Jafari for offering to keynote this year's conference in June. Both would have offered tremendous insight into the portal of today and the future. The members of the higher education community that submitted presentations also deserve to be noted by the conference. The willingness of so many people to share their stories about portals are what established the conference as the place to find out about portals, and this year's offerings would have continued building on that.
It would also not be possible to even consider the Portal Conference without the support of the many sponsors - we can't thank them enough.
While the 2010 edition of the conference has been deferred, the conference planners and organizers will continue to be active in the community and in the development of the Portal Conference into an event that continues to foster networking and connections - be it face-to-face or online. Additionally, the Portal Newsletter will continue to be published to help keep the flow of information and communications lively and current.
Should you have any questions or concerns regarding the conference, the newsletter or other matters related to portals, please feel free to contact me at malbert@gettysburg.edu.
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a reminder email for Portal 2010 - the new experience.
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