'InTouch' with better advising

The University unveiled a prototype of the newly revamped Penn InTouch program at a meeting Tuesday attended by student leaders and faculty representatives. Penn-In-Touch 2000 will allow students and their advisors to view and manipulate schedules in new and innovative ways. Among the new features that will be added is the ability to run schedules through a variety of "what-if" scenarios that allow students and advisors to easily prognosticate whether or not their classes fulfill a specific degree's requirements. This feature will initially be available for several majors in the fall. All four of the University's undergraduate schools and the Graduate School of Education will adopt the new changes, which cost a total of about $250,000. Some of the Penn InTouch changes have already begun. In late February, the Information Systems and Computing Office implemented the first phase, entitled "Advisor-In-Touch." Faculty advisors can currently access their students' records via a Web-based program whose interface is like that of Penn InTouch, but whose functions are limited: Advisors can merely view records and approve restricted courses. Next semester, however, students and advisors will have access to the new program whose database and programming algorithms will help facilitate the rather complicated task of cross-checking courses with those that are listed as requirements. The program will sort out courses according to the criteria of whether the class fulfills a general requirement or a specific requirement for a major or concentration. Designers and students hope the new Penn InTouch will improve the University's much-criticized advising system. "It'll help advisors and students and everyone who helped put it together," said Student Nurses At Penn President Lance Feldman, a Nursing sophomore. "It's a good start toward revising the entire system." Once in place, however, only those students majoring in Classical Studies, History, Math and Sociology will be able to use the "what-if" feature until programmers can fully test the feature for all majors in the database. Students will ultimately be able to see whether or not they meet the general requirements for their respective schools and see if their courses allow them to change schools or even pursue a dual degree. "I think ideally that students would have an opportunity to try out various scenarios before they even get into the advising office," said Wharton Interim Director of Academic Affairs Anne Greenhalgh, who oversees Wharton advisors. "The quality of the advising session will be greatly advanced."

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