Penn College's Cooperative Web Portal Topic of Staff Presentation

Development and promotion of a Web-based venue to help students and employees collaboratively cut through "information chaos" on Pennsylvania College of Technology's campuses was the subject of a recent staff presentation at the Ninth Annual EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference in Baltimore.

Wendy A. Cunningham, Penn College's manager of portal development and college documentation, presented "myPCT Information & Collaboration Center: Not Your Typical Campus Portal" at the conference.

"Many colleges and institutions have a traditional portal, an access point for data," she explained. "myPCT is about distributing information collegewide. It's also about collaboration among and between operational units, which is vastly different from what many other institutions have."

Cunningham demonstrated the Microsoft SharePoint-based portal, transcending mere functionality to focus on making the college's internal communication system work for audiences as diverse as the information they require.

"It's all about finding a "˜happy medium,'" she said. "Audiences are a challenge. We have different people with different informational needs and different preferences for how to get those messages."

Cunningham, who also serves as technical editor and a part-time member of the college's English faculty, earned a master's degree in creative writing from Wilkes University and holds a bachelor's degree from Penn College in technical communication.

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association, the mission of which is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. Its current membership comprises more than 2,200 colleges, universities and educational organizations with 17,000 active members.

For information about Penn College, visit online, email or call toll-free 800-367-9222.