On-line 'scanner' aids College course search

College of Arts and Sciences students will no longer have to weed through the University's course guides to find a class to suit their varied interests. As of early next week, just in time for advanced registration, College students will be able to search on-line for classes with the new College Course Scanner, according to Kent Peterman, assistant dean for academic affairs. The scanner is located on the World Wide Web off of the College's homepage. The scanner will enable students to do a key word search through the approximately 1,700 courses offered in the College. Students will also have the opportunity to search for classes similar to ones they have already taken. By using the scanner, students can find courses based on level of difficulty and choose classes that fulfill general and distributional requirements. Students will be able to transfer the list of courses they develop from their searches to a "notepad" on the Web site. This information can then be sent to the student's electronic mail account. Peterman explained that the scanner will help students who are often overwhelmed by the number of courses -- and the tome-like books needed to describe them all. "There are a lot of courses out there that just don't get a lot of enrollment," Peterman said, citing the Folklore and Linguistics departments as examples of those that students often overlook. "With that many courses, you can't get your head around it all," Peterman added. "It's no wonder students take shortcuts and rely on friends." College Advising Director Diane Frey said she hopes students take advantage of this new service. "I think they'll realize that there is more of a process of selecting courses than they are aware of," she said, adding that the scanner will enhance advising by enabling students to have more information before they see their advisors. Peterman said he also hopes to expand the scanner's capabilities into a Web site to be called the "Planner." The proposed Planner, which Peterman wants to institute by next fall, will be "more technologically complicated" than the scanner, he said. He hopes the Planner will include all University courses, a course timetable and departmental links. Eventually, Peterman said, students will be able to register for courses through the site. He added that the new site would require a security system currently not included in the scanner. The Web address for the scanner is "http://www.sas.upenn.edu/college/scanner.html".