A group of experts from colleges around the country is debating whether students should have to pass a technology-proficiency test in order to graduate.
Two delegates from Penn will represent the University at the group's meetings, which will take place twice in the coming months. Its work is funded by an $80,000 grant from the Teagle Foundation Inc., a non-profit devoted to quality in higher education.
Penn is one of 11 schools -- including Yale and Princeton universities and Swarthmore College -- sending representatives to the meetings.
Kent Peterman, Penn's director of academic affairs, and John MacDermott, director for instructional technology, are Penn's representatives.
"We're going to talk about the idea of technology fluency," Peterman said. "Sometime in the future it might lead to something."
The group will not only define standards for technology fluency, but will also decide if such requirements belong in an undergraduate curriculum. Their findings will be released in December.
Penn students aren't required to pass a computer-proficiency test to graduate.
The group is expected to release a report on its findings by the end of the year.
Peterman said that Penn is not considering the addition of a technology requirement to the College of Arts and Sciences' curriculum, in light of the major changes to the General Requirement set to take effect this fall.
"We just revised our degree requirements in the College, and we looked at the various things people proposed, and [information-technology] knowledge did not rise to the level of needing a requirement," he said.
None of Penn's four undergraduate schools currently has a technology requirement, although most engineering programs do have computational requirements, Penn Engineering professor Norman Badler said.
He added that any technology fluency requirement in the College would most likely generate a negative response from students.
"As soon as you require something, it becomes onerous. It's much better to allow people to see the benefit of learning things without making them required," Badler said.
Peterman said that he was not aware of other universities that had some kind of computer-proficiency requirement, but said many schools offer technology tutorials during new student orientation.
Teagle Foundation Vice President Donna Heiland said the group with which Penn is affiliated is one of 11 working groups and forums designed to promote "fresh thinking in liberal education."
She cited the collaboration between major research universities and smaller liberal arts colleges as an additional goal of these groups.
Heiland said that the other working groups are expected to release reports this summer.
