OPenned, an educational website produced by the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education along with Penn Apps Labs, had its soft launch last week. The website features “tutorials” on topics of interest, as well as videos of speakers on campus that students might have missed.
Engineering senior and SCUE Chair Michelle Ho said that the original idea for OPenned was inspired by MIT’s open courseware and TEDx.
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College sophomore and Daily Pennsylvanian design associate Yolanda Chen, who was head of the project this year, added that SCUE wants to capitalize on the trend of online learning. She said that the branch will be soliciting feedback from the Penn community — including alumni and prospective students — through the website.
The Daily Pennsylvanian takes a look at the new site.
Tutorials
Short videos, articles and presentations are the components that make up a tutorial. The website currently offers a tutorial on astronomy which gives a portrait of how different people at Penn are approaching the subject. Each tutorial will be designed to take about 20 to 30 minutes from beginning to end and will explore other subjects in depth.
After winter break, three more tutorials — on food, human evolution and journalism — will be made available on the site.
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College sophomore Laura Sorice, who worked on the project, said that the website is meant to draw on Penn’s intellectual community. “We tried to create a narrative based around all of the resources that Penn has to offer,” she said.
Speakers
In addition to the tutorials, OPenned has an “On Campus” tab where videos of campus speakers like Eva Longoria and Malcolm Gladwell will be uploaded for later reference.
“Penn students are very busy. They don’t always have the time or even the knowledge to go to these lectures,” Ho said.
Ho hopes that students will use the platform to follow up on a topic that they heard about in class.
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Expansion plans
In the future, Ho said that a special committee will maintain OPenned — similar to what had happened with Penn Course Review, which was once under SCUE but is now a separate entity.
SCUE also hopes to expand the variety of content they offer on the platform. They are interested in incorporating the Year of Sound and sports into their tutorials.
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