Penn's online course guide has returned to its place on the Web, but questions remain about the reasons behind the popular site's prolonged absence.
The Penn Course Review Web site came back online Friday after a hiatus that extended as far back as Aug. 12.
The site's inaccessibility left many students without a valuable resource for information on professors and classes as they attempt to make last-minute changes to their fall schedules.
College senior Farrah Freis, the chairwoman of the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education, said that the down-time was not caused by technical problems.
She would not elaborate on the cause of the problems, however.
She added that the Course Review would be available during the entire course-selection process for next semester.
The Web site is administered by SCUE but is hosted by the vice provost for University life's Web site.
"I want to highlight how important it is for students to have access to that data," Freis said. "It's just important to maintain communication with all the relevant parties."
While the Course Review is now functioning normally, it has not been updated. This means that ratings for classes taught during the last two semesters have not yet been added to the site. The most recent ratings available are from the spring of 2004.
"Now, it's our assignment to get the data from last year," Freis said. "That's our first priority."
Other than eliminating server difficulties as a possible cause, Freis could not give a specific reason as to why the Course Review was down for so long. She did, however, say that having a group of dedicated and talented student editors would be a key to keeping the Course Review online in the future.
"It's really important that we maintain a strong base of students with Course Review," Freis said.
The Course Review has suffered from problems since it first went online four years ago. Undergraduate Assembly Chairwoman Rachel Fersh said that a lack of senior leadership had contributed to the site's temporary downfall.
SCUE and the UA have been in charge of the project since its inception, although the student government organizations involved had taken a more hands-off approach recently.
