The new PennPortal system went live last Monday morning without much fanfare among students.
The portal replaced an interim menu on the new Penn Home Page under the header "current students," which students were previously forced to look through for services like Penn InTouch.
The personalized homepage provides a one-stop tool for accessing Penn InTouch, as well as Campus Express, the Penn Library system, Web-based electronic mail and Blackboard through a PennKey username and password log-in.
"Yesterday was the first time I went on it" College senior Sarah Blackman said. "It really wasn't advertised very well."
Numerous other students did not even know that PennPortal existed.
However, Executive Director for Information Services and Computing Jeanne Curtis said that the responses received by ISC thus far were very enthusiastic.
"Students have been e-mailing and telling us that they really like what we're doing," Curtis said.
PennPortal is still a work in progress, since student groups are still creating channels on the site and professors are adding course materials, syllabi and links to relevant information.
Student reaction toward the implementation of the portal system has been mixed.
"I think putting everything on one basic Web site is pretty helpful, it just takes a little while to get used to it," College sophomore Adrian Jones said.
The strongest complaint has been the saturation of information on the first page of the portal.
"Our goal is to make sure people can find things so that when they need something they won't be looking all over for it," Curtis said. "My encouragement is, rather than complaining, we would like students to take the time to create their own tab."
PennPortal allows students to create personalized tabs in addition to the Penn, Library and school-specific tabs that are already included. They can add links, choose from a variety of channels and design a layout that best fits their interests.
The portal includes an online tutorial that explains how to design a personal tab. However, "If the demand is in place we would be happy to train [information technology advisors] to help students with the portal if they think the online tutorial isn't working," Curtis said.
The PennPortal content committee will meet tomorrow to discuss updates and changes to the portal. The committee includes three student representatives charged with providing feedback from their peers, as well as ideas for improving the portal system.
Access to the PennPortal requires a PennKey which brings on a whole new set of problems for some students.
"I just registered my PennKey to get in to the portal, and I forgot my password the next day," Wharton senior Ariana Jackson said.
"It's kind of a pain but I do think it is a good idea, it's better than the old system," she added.
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