» Creating a Portal that works for your Community

Paul Takala1 and Umar Ruhi2

1 Hamilton Public Library

2 DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Canada


Presented: February 2005.

Hamilton Public Library is a leading partner in the creation of the myhamilton.ca community portal that will be launched in the spring of 2005. Paul Takala will share how Hamilton is making the vision of "An Open Door to Your Community" a reality, lessons learned and key elements of Hamilton's solution. Umar Ruhi will explain researchers' investigation of the adoption of the portal and study factors impacting on its use. As well will explain key elements of their research methodology, and several data analytics and success metrics that can be utilized to access the use of community portals over time.

Keywords: Virtual Communities, Community Portal, User Participation, Adoption, Community Informatics.

Online: Link to Conference Website with Presentation Abstract