Some observations about relevant technologies

These are some observations from Ben about relevant technologies in Fusion middleware:

jDeveloper - A tool used for integration with PeopleSoft's java applications and web services

Sakai - I know we have been looking at this recently as an LMS. From the sounds of it, Selim likes it and thinks Oracle is possibly going to support integration with it, or else back the community support for it.

BPEL - My spin on this is a BPEL acts as an XML trader between PeopleSoft, and other services (say a webserver for example). Something doesn't seem like it would be too useful in the immediate future, but could be more useful as PeopleSoft moves more towards extensive use of XML for passing data.

Here are some things that might be of interest for the web site redesign:

PeopleTools 8.48
Support for XML - I suspect this will be very useful in terms of integrating data into the new CMS to be implemented as part of this redesign.

Support for XSLT - XSLT is a method for formating XML data (IE applying graphic design to raw data). From my limited experience with the aesthetic appeal (or lack there of) of the PeopleSoft user interface this has the potential of being very useful in the redesign.

WebCenter - An AJAX rich toolset which can be used to integrate Portals with websites. From the Oracle website's description it sounds like this is a javabased toolset (as opposed to a webscripting language like Cold Fusion, or PHP). To me this means more development time, but it may be worth looking into as we integrate the portal into the redesigned website.

I know we were talking about providing portfolios for students recently, as well as colaboration tools. A couple that came up in this meeting were:

ImageNow -- Document management software that has native integration with PeopleSoft
Portfolio (Oracle Software)
PhotoPost (PHP Based ~$100)

We have some hosted Portfolio solution that students (rarely, to my understanding) use. I did not catch the name of it however.

A couple companies that came up that may be of interest:

Hyperion - Currently being acquired by Oracle, they provide performance monitoring software.
SAP - Oracle's self-declared competition
Informix - an IBM series of servers.
Oblix - The company that was purchased by Oracle (1997) for its Authentication Identity software.