What is the PPG Portal?  The PPG Portal is a Web 2.0-enabled platform to support teaching, learning and collaborative projects in Canadian public policy and governance by providing authoritative concept explanations and resource materials along with the capacity for secure file-sharing and electronic communication.

What is the current status of the PPG Portal?  The portal is an evolving entity. Although there are still parts of the portal with little content, there is now much material available on the portal that students and practitioners will find useful. As of July 2011 the portal has almost 2,000 concepts derived from  courses which likely represent over 90 per cent of the content of the core courses in Canadian master’s programs of public policy and public administration.

Who has access to material on the PPG Portal?  The information on the PPG Portal is organized in different types of sites (Concepts, Courses, Practice Areas, Projects) with access to these sites being determined by the permissions granted by the site managers. Levels of permission include: Read (view only); Contribute (view, add to and edit text in existing sites); and Manage Hierarchy (create new sites and add functionality to existing sites).

Will the public have access to resources on the PPG Portal? The public face of the PPG Portal is the PPG Glossary, launched in November 2010, which provides summary descriptions of many of the concept entries generated in the Portal.

How does one become a PPG Portal Member?  Download the PPG Portal Membership Request form. Complete the form, save and email to Matthew Warwick, the PPG Portal Administrator at warwick.matthewwarwick@gmail.com.

Who manages the PPG Portal?  The project coordinator is Ian Clark, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The project is supported by the CAPPA, the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration.

Who finances the PPG Portal?  The development of the PPG Portal project is supported by a $300,000 Knowledge Impact in Society (KIS) grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (over three years, ending March 2011) and a $205,000 contribution from the Canada School of Public Service's Innovative Public Management Research Fund (over three years, ending March 2010). The University of Toronto supports the project through provision of funding for research assistants, the maintenance of the servers and contributions for contracted web development. The Government of Ontario provides support through the Ontario Visiting Fellow. Schools of public policy and public administration across Canada support the project through the time of their faculty and staff. Support has also been provided for meetings by KPMG Canada and additional technical support is contributed by Jolera Click IT.

Is there a charge for PPG Portal membership?  There is no charge for membership in the PPG Portal. Members are expected to contribute to the portal by providing comments on the content, to respect scholarly traditions and intellectual property laws in the citing of material, and to respond to other portal members, including students, who may ask for advice.