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The University of Pennsylvania's Online Computing Magazine

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[Printout | About | Archives | Search ] March 1997  -  Volume 13:7 FEATURES Major changes to Franklin and Library databases by Paul H. Mosher Microsoft Office 97 preview by John J. Mulhern III and Diane Fink

All graphics in this issue of the Printout Online are from the Library's Online Exhibit: John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC Computer.

Printout-Almanac Digest

Updated computing web

Several new features and services designed to improve access to computing information on the Penn Web were put in place last weekend.

• A new search page was created to search the computing web. The computing web is currently defined as School-based computing pages, the Cornerstone web server for administrative data, the Computer Connection's web site, some of the Library's technical and course-related pages, and many pages in the www.upenn.edu/computing directory. The Printout Online, which has its own search tool, is excluded.

• A series of topical pages replaced the old computing overview page. The topical pages (help, news, providers, services, and supported products) are available as a set of navigation aids at the top of many pages in the computing web pages.

• The computing glossary was updated. It now contains links to relevant computing resources, as well as brief descriptions of computing terms of interest to the Penn community.

Many computing pages were updated and some outdated material was removed. Of particular interest, please note:

• The ISC planning web site now includes the ISC Strategic Plan for 1996-2000. The strategic plan details ISC's mission, goals, strategies, challenges, and opportunities over the next five years. Also available are ISC's 1997 planning documents, which nclude a mid-year review and status report.

• The ISC-supported product suite, a yearly feature story written by Don Montabana in past Penn Printout volumes, is now published in the computing web and will be updated as needed. The supported products pages feature an overview of all ISC-supported products (including supported, but no longer recommended products). The overview page links to support specification documents where appropriate and these documents link to related resources at Penn and on the web.

• The Gartner intraWeb, a database of Gartner Group technology advisories, was moved to www.upenn.edu/computing/gartner/. ISC created a special-purpose search utility to retrieve information from the database. The Gartner intraWeb search results are also included in the new computing search facility.

 

• Previously popular Printout departments are now available in the computing web. The Hot Questions column on the help page replaces the Q&A page; the Random Bits column (also on the help page) survived with its name intact. The announcements column, largly superseded by the Printout-Almanac Digest, will be available on the news page -- along with any announcements that computing groups on campus would like to contribute. Also featured on the news page is a column of "What's New" on the computing web.

The URL of the main computing page (www.upenn.edu/computing/) will not change. Although Information Systems and Computing's home page will move to www.upenn.edu/computing/isc, the old URL (www.upenn.edu/isc/) will function as an alias for the new home.

To help users locate information that has been reorganized in the computing web, a new "document not found" page was created. If a document moved to a known location, the new URL will be displayed and linked. If no link is available, try the search page, the new services page, or select the link to send e-mail notification to the editors. The Penn community is invited to participate in the computing web by providing feedback, suggesting links to relevant computing resources from any of the current set of pages, working with the computing web team to improve this resource (Contact: editors@isc.upenn.edu).

Penn Printout Online

Paul Mosher, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries, previews major changes coming this summer for Franklin (the Penn Libraries online catalog) and several other databases in the March edition of the Penn Printout Online. The move from mainframe technology to client/server technology promises many long-term benefits.

Also included are an advance look at Microsoft Office 97 by John Mulhern III and Diane Fink; coming soon will be an overview of the Gartner intraWeb.

Please note that the URL of the Penn Printout Online has changed to www.upenn.edu/computing/printout/.