As advance registration comes to a close this weekend, students will have one more chance to register for courses on the old Penn InTouch system.
This June, Penn InTouch will finally get an extreme makeover two years in the making. During that time, Student Registration and Financial Services "refreshed" the Penn InTouch online system with the help of Information Services and Computing and two advisory committees.
Over the weekend of June 13 and 14, they will unveil the site's significant improvements, according to SRFS information technology director Regina Koch.
The rollout is a continuation of the project that introduced the new Course Search and Mock Schedule application in March 2008.
Koch said, like the mock-schedule maker, the Penn InTouch interface will be "more modern in its look, and hopefully a lot clearer for people to see."
When a user logs into Penn InTouch, the new home screen will have many of the same functions, but will be more logically arranged, she explained.
Instantly visible in the middle will be alerts and announcements, important dates and deadlines and the student's current schedule.
Expandable menu items, academic program information, the student's picture - to remind the user that he or she is logged in - and academic advisor contacts will be on the left.
Links to sites such as Student Financial Services, Campus Express and PennPortal will go across the top, and "Quick Links" to the most frequently viewed menu items, such as transcript requests and PennPay, will be on the right.
One of the more impressive changes will be to the advance course registration application.
Students will be able to use their mock schedules to build their actual course requests. With the click of a button, students will move courses from their course cart to their real list and also change the request order more visibly.
Throughout the process, a small graphic of the tentative schedule will build in the corner to show what has been requested so far. After advance registration, open sections will also be shown on the side.
Viewing grades will also be easier. "Right now, you can only access your transcript three times a day," Koch said. "[The interface] gives you a list of courses and grades by term - you don't get your cumulative GPA, but you can see your grades."
The Student Advisory Committee, made up of five undergraduate and four graduate students, was an important factor in the revamping process.
"It's been such a long process," Anthony Maggio, College senior and committee chairman, said.
Most of the anticipated changes were decided upon last year, so gathering student perspective on each portion of the reworked site has been the main focus, he said. Freshman contributions have been particularly helpful.
Overall, student response has been "fantastic," Maggio said.
Koch agreed, saying they have received a lot of positive feedback from focus groups.
Because the changes build upon the old system, talks about an entirely new system are also under way, but it will be a few years before they come to fruition, Koch added.
Advance registration is still taking place until the end of the week using the old system.
