Starting on Oct. 21, Penn students will have the electronic world at their fingertips. With the launch of PennPortal, the long wait for a personalized student Web page is over.
PennPortal pulls together popular student resources onto one page. Students can access Penn-In-Touch, Campus Express, the Penn Library system, Web-based electronic mail and Blackboard, among other things, by logging into their portal using their PennKey and password.
Vice President for Information Services and Computing Robin Beck said she is very excited about the upcoming PennPortal launch.
"It really finds a way to respond to what we've heard from students by making it easier to locate the resources they need," she said. "And because we're leveraging and building on investments we've already made, it has been relatively inexpensive."
Sessions were held with students last spring to promote feedback that would help administrators tailor the portal to best reflect student interests.
Executive Director for Information Services and Computing Jeanne Curtis emphasized the role that students played in the formation of the Web page.
"We wanted to provide a place where students could find the things they're looking for so we literally went to them and said, 'Tell us what you want,'" she said.
And according to ISC Technical Director Jim Choate, in addition to providing University resources, PennPortal is also personalizable and customizable.
Students can add specific links that they frequent, pull in feeds from major newspapers, change the layout of the site and choose from a variety of available "channels" to best fit their interests.
These channels are methods of delivering information that allow for flexibility and give students the ability to pick and choose between a list of available options.
Eventually, administrators say they hope that student clubs, sports teams and other campus organizations will apply for channels that students can then select as part of their customized portals.
PennPortal groups resources by content made available in a series of tabs across the top of the page.
The Penn tab is the default that contains all information and resources pertinent to University life, including daily calendars for the current week, news and announcements and a list of courses in which the students are enrolled.
Along with the Penn tab, all students will have a tab specific to their particular school. In addition, "my tab" is available for students to customize a page according to their individual preferences. This allows students to freely add or remove channels, providing for flexibility as well as creativity.
The portal is similar to other Web portals that have been created in several individual schools -- like the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Wharton School -- for their students' needs.
Curtis emphasized the student-oriented goal behind Penn-Portal. "We want a place for students that is geared toward their experiences and allows them to create a view that is personal."
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