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Welcome
The semester starts tomorrow, and your list of 17 courses has to be narrowed down. But wait, you have Penn Course Reviewed!
Introduction
As a student, it becomes evident that the best way to find out whether a course is good or not is by word of mouth.
Penn Course ReviewED offers you an opportunity to find out what others thought about their courses, so that you can choose which ones are right for you. At the same time, tell your peers exactly what you thought about a course or a professor. What specifically did you like or dislike? Was the course what you expected, or disappointing? Too much work, but worth it? It can all be very subjective, which is why we prefer to rely on words and not just numbers.
Browse through the courses, peruse through the ratings, and digest the comments: find out which courses or professors are a better fit for your needs.
But remember, it is also up to you to tell others what you thought about a course or professor. It is a give and give system: give to others so that others give back. The success of Penn Course Review depends on you.
Our users
Any person with a valid .upenn.edu email may register, and that is all we require. Your email is kept private from other users, so only your screename is displayed. Information such as year, school, majors, minors, or interests is optional, but it is useful when judging the personal relevance of a comment.
Why we did this
Currently, the university offers a similar course review service: at the close of each semester students fill out course evaluation forms. However, these ratings can sometimes be irrelevant to the course at hand, and with many items per section, it can get confusing. It is also presumed that a lot of students either fail to attend this last class or do not fill out the forms with serious care.
Penn Course Reviewed simplifies this system with only three ratings: a section, a difficulty, and a professor rating. These ratings are averaged out into an overall section, overall course, and overall professor rating. The scale is from 0 to 10, which should be more familiar to most students.
The most important element is the comment section: freely read other's opinions and express your own, breaking free from the numbers. You can comment on a specific part of the course or the professor that you liked or disliked, and give advice to future students. You can also learn about other's experiences and figure out whether a course is a good match for you.
About us
Penn Course ReviewED started out at the University of Pennsylvania as a CIS 399 class project by students who found out (the long and hard way) that the best way to choose a course or professor was by asking about it. The original group of four people developed the concept by mapping out the underlying information architecture as well as making decisions on important features and functionality.
In an effort to provide fellow peers with a useful tool for that pre-registration craze, two eager students took this basic framework and rebuilt, redesigned and refined the project. Despite the many unforeseen obstacles that would have made many others give up, Penn Course ReviewED was fully implemented to completion.
We would like to thank all the people who made this project possible, from the inception of the concept to user testing to user enjoyment.
If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to contact the webmaster.