Volume 8, Number 5: February 20, 2002
Portal
Wisconsin: Culture, Humanities,
Arts, and History on One Convenient Website
by Tammy
Kempfert, TTT Editor
There's a new place
to go to appreciate and discuss Wisconsin culture--online at http://www.portalwisconsin.org.
Portal Wisconsin was created by Wisconsin's Cultural Coalition, a body of seven state organizations that originally teamed up to guide the state sesquicentennial commission in organizing the 150th statehood celebration. These organizations--Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters; Wisconsin Arts Board; Wisconsin Historical Society; Wisconsin Humanities Council; Wisconsin Public Radio; Wisconsin Public Television; and University of Wisconsin Extension-Continuing Education--continue to act as project partners. The partners, together with the small Portal Wisconsin staff, developed and launched the site in less than a year. Agencies interested in posting content to Portal Wisconsin are asked to contact the partner organization that best suits their mission. As soon as a partner authorizes an agency's involvement, the agency will receive a password, allowing its staff to enter and update information on its own. "We have a customer service sort of goal, so this all happens fairly quickly--usually within 24 hours," says Engelman. |
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![]() Implemented by Wisconsin Public Television and funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the University of Wisconsin-Extension, Portal Wisconsin serves as an example for public television stations throughout the nation. "Wisconsin Public Television has always been known to break ground," says Project Manager and WPTV veteran Nella Citino. Besides modelling a successful collaborative venture, "Other stations are looking to us to test different models and experiment with technologies," Citino says. Currently, the Portal team are figuring out how to implement innovations such as data casting. Later this month, Engelman will represent the Portal Wisconsin team at a national interactive summit for public radio and television stations, where she plans to stress the success of the partnership. Meanwhile, Portal staff will continue hosting focus groups and watching the site's Web statistics in order to determine its most valuable features, both to its partners and to its users. If you are affiliated with any University of Wisconsin institution and you wish to post a campus resource to Portal Wisconsin, please contact Amy Pikalek, University Relations Specialist, UW-Extension, 608-262-6660. |