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Academus Portal Technology Provides Easy Access, Collaborative Environment for University Constituents

Unicon Inc. announced today that University of California, Santa Barbara has selected Academus, Unicon's Web portal solution, to power their Sakai course management system prototype. UC Santa Barbara, home to more than nine national research centers, will provide this solution to serve their campus of more than 22,000 students, faculty, and administrators.


The open-source portal developed by the Java Architectures Special Interest Group (JA-SIG), uPortal, is the framework of Academus, creating a cost-effective, scalable portal solution to fit the needs of UC Santa Barbara and other distinctive institutions.

The UC Santa Barbara Information Systems and Computing software support team looked for a company with uPortal knowledge to help in the deployment and ongoing support of uPortal as a solution. They felt that Unicon has developed a product and support team that can stand behind the open-source solution.

The product, Academus, provides a user-friendly Web interface integrated with pre-configured channels to encourage collaboration and communication online. In addition, Academus serves as a powerful integration platform to a great number of outside applications, ultimately providing a single sign-on gateway to a customized online campus.

"Our involvement in the open-source initiative and higher education has allowed us to create a product that those in higher education can adopt as a useful tool for their campus," said John C. Blakley, CEO of Unicon. "Academus provides a platform for UC Santa Barbara to simplify the business behind online learning."

About the University of California, Santa Barbara

UC Santa Barbara is a public institution that is part of the world-renowned University of California. The campus enrolls some 20,000 students, 2,600 of them at the graduate level. A leading research university, UC Santa Barbara is home to 10 national centers for research, seven of them funded by the National Science Foundation. Five members of its faculty have won Nobel Prizes since 1998. Twice in the past three years, the campus has been named one of North America's "hottest colleges" by the popular Newsweek/Kaplan guide to colleges.

About Unicon Inc.

Since 1993, Unicon has been designing, building, and managing technology solutions for colleges, universities, schools, and corporations worldwide. Unicon solutions are based on open-source technology to increase productivity while reducing costs. Unicon Inc. is the leading independent provider of enterprise portal, collaborative, learning, and integration technology for higher education institutions. Unicon is the leading commercial supporter of the uPortal open-source Web portal initiative, and is a Sakai commercial affiliate. Unicon also maintains and supports applications of the Cisco Networking Academy Program. For more information, please visit Unicon on the Web at http://www.unicon.net