By Heather Herzog
Information Technology Services
A new digital account system known as Friends of Penn State (FPS), has been developed to help provide a variety of University services to potential students, alumni and e-commerce customers via the Web.
Already boasting more than 110,000 users, the FPS account management system has been designed by Information Technology Services (ITS) to enable the development of Web-based information resources to serve individuals outside the University in a more efficient, streamlined way. FPS also is part of the University's initiative to create a long-term relationship with the many individuals who use Penn State services, such as library technologies, e-stores, World Campus, the registrar's office and undergraduate admissions.
A number of University organizations are developing Web sites to make their services available to FPS account holders, according to Steven Kellogg, director of Advanced Information Technologies within ITS.
"In the past, offices like Undergraduate Admissions, University Libraries and World Campus had to design their own specific account system in order for non-psu.edu Internet users to access their respective services," Kellogg said. "This has been a complicated and difficult effort, since each organization had to devise an account that would serve the full-spectrum of Internet Providers -- AOL, Adelphia, Earthlink and so on. Penn State wanted to make life easier by managing this function centrally for offices and departments."
Kellogg predicts that eventually a majority of digital access for the outside Penn State community will be managed through Friends of Penn State. Retirees who have benefits will not be part of FPS, since they already retain their regular Penn State Access Account status when they leave the University and will continue in retirement as full members of the psu.edu community.
For alumni, potential students and others outside the University, however, the FPS account should help foster a long-term digital relationship with Penn State for anyone affiliated with University programs and services, Kellogg said.
"The shared vision is that a high school student will be able to sign up for one of the summer sports camps as a Friend of Penn State and later use the account to learn whether he or she wants to attend the University. If the same person eventually becomes a Penn State student, the University automatically will convert the FPS account to a Penn State Access Account. Upon the student's graduation, the account will revert to FPS, allowing the individual to take continuing education classes and access a variety of other services."
At this time, anyone who does not have a Penn State Access Account, but who wants to electronically visit World Campus, the e-Golf store, Undergraduate Admissions, the Registrar's Office and many more University Web locations has (or soon will have) the option to acquire the Friends of Penn State status.
Planners also believe the concept of Friends of Penn State will make it easier for the University to develop a seamless information management infrastructure that can be tailored to the specific needs of the FPS community.
According to Joe Hughes, head professional at Penn State Golf Courses, ITS Web developer Cynthia Kane designed a 'Web front' for the Courses e-Golf Store (with FPS users in mind) that makes it extremely simple for customers to find what they need. The new e-Store, which is expected to take advantage of FPS in the near future, already has made many e-business functions less expensive and more effective for his staff to run, he said.
"The interface has been customized to appeal to our mostly alumni-based e-clients and to be user-friendly from a management perspective. We can plug in photos, prices and other information about our Golf Shop with just a couple of quick key strokes."
Other departments are creating their own electronic infrastructures to provide group-specific resources to the FPS community. The College of Agricultural Sciences is planning to develop a Web-based system that will provide resources for Pennsylvania farmers (based on FPS account identities) which could supply information tailored to specific agricultural interests such as crops, pesticides, irrigation, soil condition and other pertinent topics.
Some organizations have not elected to use the new account yet, but are evaluating how it might best be used for their constituencies. The University Libraries are considering how it will best fit in with the Libraries' resources, according to Sally Kalin, associate dean for the University Park Libraries.
"Many of our University Libraries resources, such as the CAT, the online catalog; University Park and Campus College Libraries' Web sites; and specialized subject guides, have always been freely accessible to the public. We anticipate the FPS account will offer an easier route of access to these resources as well as our digital Libraries' projects."
Kellogg adds that these kinds of concerns illustrate that the concept of FPS is still evolving.
"There are some offices that will, because of their respective missions, need to build in restrictive functions according to which groups within Friends of Penn State they want to target, and others where any category of user will be a welcome customer. Because of the FPS authentication function we can set up parameters for each organization based on identity. So our goal is to accommodate the greatest possible spectrum of ideas and needs with this technology."
To learn more about the Friends of Penn State initiative, check the Web at http://aset.its.psu.edu/fpsproject/.