This is the seventh chapter of Designing portals, which is a collection of papers on Internet portals in higher education, including sections on design, case studies, and vendor perspectives. This chapter provides a high-level overview of the next generation Internet portals, within the context of university campus portals. It highlights the roles of intelligent agents in next generation portals. The intelligent agents in portal environments should have the following characteristics: knowledge of users, subject matter expertise, autonomy, and trainability. They should be able to perform the following functions for end users: automation of routine tasks, notification of significant events, learning of user behavior patterns, and tutoring in context when needed. Jafari divided the intelligent agents in a campus portal into three major categories: digital teaching assistant, digital tutor, and digital secretary. The author also noticed that next generation portals should offer new types of communication channels, for example, interfaces with personal digital assistants (PDA) and cellular phones.

Overall, this chapter provides a short and limited high-level, nontechnical overview of next generation Internet portals for higher education. Its focus is on the roles of intelligent agents in campus portals. Most of the functions the author described already exist to some degree, so it is really about the coming generation of Internet portals. This chapter is worth reading for educators, students, and portal vendors, to learn what they can expect in the next few years, if not sooner.