Overview of the webCafé solution

What is webCafé?

The Wharton School's award-winning webCafé services provide easy-to-use Web-based tools for collaborating and sharing information in teaching, research and student activities.

• webCafé provides virtual "rooms" on the web in which faculty and students can discuss and vote on topics of interest; share and search for documents, group calendars and task lists; and collaborate on projects online, regardless of location or schedule conflicts.
  
  webCafé is based on the Documentum eRoom enterprise collaboration solution from EMC Software and also incorporates many customizations and enhancements by Wharton Computing & Information Technology. Third-party tools, such as Cogix ViewsFlash survey software and the Questionmark Perception assessment platform, are also integrated into webCafé for specific applications and needs.
  
  Since 1998, webCafé has provided an online enhancement for hundreds of Wharton courses. Currently, over 500 courses during each academic year, comprising four-fifths of enrollment sections and 80% of faculty teaching each semester, utilize a webCafé room. These courses span the various Wharton curricula: full-time MBA, full-time undergraduate, MBA Program for Executives, Programs for Working Professionals certificate program, Executive Masters in Technology Management, Wharton Fellows, and Aresty Institute of Executive Education seminars. In addition, there are many student organizations, Wharton conferences and other groups using webCafé to share information and coordinate projects.
  
  webCafé rooms are always available for Wharton courses, and rooms are also provided for selected recognized student organizations at Wharton who apply for service. Faculty research and other non-teaching-related collaborative projects, originally accommodated on the teaching webCafé infrastructure (through 2004), now have separate hardware/software resources at the FacultyCafé site. Please contact us if you are interested in using webCafé in teaching; faculty may also contact a Wharton Computing distributed computing support staff member regarding both teaching and non-teaching needs.
  
  

Benefits for instructors

• webCafé makes it easy to put course or research documents on the Web without HTML expertise.
  
  
• Files used in teaching or research are easy to access from the Internet through most Web browsers, and calendars provide easy access to course information organized by date.
  
  
• webCafé helps conduct focused online discussion surrounding a topic or document. In addition, survey tools provides ways to gauge opinions or assess comprehension of materials.
  
  
• As opposed to a public or intranet Web site, a webCafé room is private to its members (faculty, research or teaching assistants, and students). Participants log on using a username and password and can easily form teams and work in groups.
  

Benefits for students and teams

• webCafé works with your Wharton computing account and can be located through web sites you already use, such as SPIKE and PennPortal. No special usernames and passwords are required for access by Wharton students. webCafé rooms for courses and student activities can be easily found using our home page.
  
  
• For courses or organizations that involve group projects, students can build shared folders, group calendars and databases in webCafé.
  
  
• Documents in many different commonly-used file formats are automatically indexed for searching using the built-in search engine.
  
  
• webCafé can provide notification when new or changed material is available, either through on-screen indicators or e-mail change reports.
  
  

How is webCafé best used?

• webCafé is best used as a Web enhancement to any course that includes a degree of collaboration: courses with an intensive discussion component, as well as courses with group papers or projects.
  
  
• For courses, webCafé is also useful where the instructor seeks easy-to-use Web tools for providing course documents and communicating with students in a private, password-protected virtual room.
  
  
• Wharton faculty have also found webCafé to be a valuable aid to research and other non-course-related academic collaborative activities.  Starting in 2005, eRooms for research, faculty committees and other non-course projects have been made available at a separate site known as FacultyCafé.
  
  

Product matrix comparing webCafé Classic to course management tools

What Wharton Computing provides

• Templates, custom development, tool integration and starter content, collectively known as "webCafé Classic" -- our adaptation of EMC Software's Documentum eRoom collaboration software product for academic purposes at Wharton
  
  
• Initial setup of a webCafé Classic room for any Wharton course
  
  
• Best-practices advice, help and technical support for faculty, students and staff
  
  
• Association of room membership with Wharton student computing accounts, as well as with course enrollment
  
  

Tour the webCafé solution

• Introducing webCafé (Flash animation; requires Macromedia Flash plug-in)
• Additional webCafé tutorials
  

For more information

Contact Wharton Computing and Information Technology:

• The primary contact for teaching and student uses of webCafé is Wharton Computing's webCafé Classic Team:
  
  • Service and support for teaching and student organizations:
    Visit our Help & Support/FAQs page
    
  • webCafé Classic Team e-mail address: webcafe@wharton.upenn.edu
    
  • webCafé Classic Team staff members:
    Kendall Whitehouse, Senior Director
    Rob Ditto, Senior IT Project Leader
    Anthony Kutovoy, Senior IT Project Leader
    Wendy Donnan, Consulting Developer
    Karen Leary, IT Project Leader
    
    
• Alternative contact for any faculty-related computing issues, as well as primary contact for FacultyCafé support and requests for new sites supporting research and departmental initiatives:
  
  • Wharton Computing's distributed computing support staff
    Don Huesman, Senior Director

webCafé news & information

Links to online publications and press releases mentioning webCafé:

• Christine Kane notes the upcoming tenth anniversary of webCafé at the Wharton School in "Enterprise Collaboration 2.0", EMC ON Magazine, Number 1, 2008, pp. 8-13.
• The University of Pennsylvania's information technology guide for prospective students and parents highlights webCafé as a collaborative environment supporting learning in "Enhancing the Curriculum with IT", part of the Penn gets IT web site.
• The Daily Pennsylvanian's editorial board encourages faculty to post grades online using capabilities of webCafé and related systems in "Using technology", January 17, 2008. (Note: Wharton Computing recommends that the webCafé Grade Book include assignment grades and related feedback, but not students' final grades; this is because the University Registrar distributes official final grades to PennInTouch, transcripts, and other systems of record.)
• Wharton undergraduate student Cassandra Tognoni identifies webCafé as one campus system which currently provides course information only to enrolled students in "Shop 'til you drop", The Daily Pennsylvanian, September 17, 2007, p. 6.
• Randy Smith quotes Wharton Computing senior director Kendall Whitehouse on the role of webCafé in supporting faculty-student and student-student interaction in his chapter of Teaching Management: A Field Guide for Professors, Consultants, and Corporate Trainers, James G.S. Clawson and Mark E. Haskins, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 278-279.
• Incoming Wharton undergraduates taking Management 100 use webCafé to turn in images and essays depicting the essence of leadership. Knowledge@Wharton interviewed the Undergraduate Division's Anne Greenhalgh and Chris Maxwell about their findings in "Gandhi, Mandela, Mother Teresa, a Tree, a Pillow... Images of Leadership from Future Leaders", March 8, 2006.
• The Wharton School's webCafé was selected as a 2005 Laureate by the Computerworld Honors Program (case study).
• KMWorld Conference 2005 included a session on social software and knowledge management featuring webCafé's role in collaboration in the learning process at Wharton, presented by Lance Shaw of EMC (PowerPoint slides), November 15, 2005.
• The Daily Pennsylvanian's Ashwin Thapar highlights Wharton's success with online student collaboration in courses which use webCafé in "Library aims to upgrade course software", November 23, 2005, p. 4. Note: Also covered by Michael Sampson at Shared Spaces Research & Consulting (Quick Links, Nov. 23).
• Kendall Whitehouse mentions webCafé in an Educause Quarterly article, "Web-Enabled Simulations: Exploring the Learning Process", Volume 28, Number 3, 2005, pp. 20-29.
• Matt Villano describes webCafé as one of the University of Pennsylvania's "most successful undertakings" in "Rich Media", Campus Technology, August 2005
• Marcia Jedd outlines webCafé's benefits to faculty and users distributed across the world in "Talking About My Collaboration", AIIM E-DOC Magazine, May/June 2005
• Wharton Executive Education's e-Buzz newsletter describes how webCafé fits into blended e-learning for corporate customers in "Booz-Allen e-Learning Program Combines High Tech and High Touch," November 2004
• The editorial page of The Daily Pennsylvanian expresses concerns about differing University courseware systems, including webCafé, as well as other school technologies in "Interdisciplinary goal worthwhile", editorial, October 19, 2004
• Campus Technology magazine's Collaboration for the Campus Enterprise solution center minisite describes how Wharton has customized webCafé in "Technologies Reach Across Campus, State — and World" by Linda Briggs
• Portals Magazine headlined "The Wharton School's Interactive MBAs" on their April/May 2004 cover, tying in with Kathleen Reidy's feature story on webCafé, "Class Discussion."
• Wharton Computing Senior IT Project Leader Rob Ditto wrote a case study outlining Wharton's success with webCafé in "Teaching and Learning Through Online Collaboration", Campus Technology (formerly Syllabus) magazine, April 2004
• webCafé was featured in ComputerUser magazine's cover story for August 2003, "The Worldwide Classroom"
• Bob Pielke describes webCafé as part of the school's "plan to reshape its business education" in "Wharton webCafe earns high satisfaction ratings," from California Virtual Campus Faculty/Staff News, 6/28/2002
• Wharton's MBA students give webCafé a 97% satisfaction rating, from "Web-Based Collaboration Enriches Learning at the Wharton School," press release, June 2002
• Van Weigel, professor of ethics and economic development at Eastern College, cites webCafé as "an unqualified success" in the book Deep Learning for a Digital Age (November 2001, Jossey-Bass)
• "eRoom Makes Sharing Data Easier" by John Fontana, Network World magazine, 5/21/2001
• The University of Pennsylvania's Student Committee on Undergraduate Education mentions webCafé as a system that "allows a professor to create an elaborate website with rich features in a minimal amount of time," in University of Pennsylvania Almanac, 4/3/2001
• Wharton's use of eRoom was profiled as part of the 2001 Crossroads A-List Award won by eRoom Technology.
• Wharton's use of eRoom was selected as a finalist in the Microsoft Corporation 2000 Industry Solution Awards, 11/6/2000
• "eRoom Updates Collaborative Software" by Barbara Darrow, CMP Media TechWeb: The Business Technology Network, 10/20/2000
• "Collaboration On The Desktop" by Marion Agnew, InformationWeek magazine, 7/10/2000

Other background information on webCafé and Wharton:

• "The webCafé Story," about 1998-1999 launch of webCafé at the Wharton School (originally appeared in The Wharton Journal)
• The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania:
  • Facts at a Glance
• Home pages of key vendors:
  • EMC Software
  • Cogix
  • Questionmark

webCafé site credits

• Departmental listing page design: Cornelius Adetiba, University of Pennsylvania '99, Columbia University '07
• Product matrix: Michele Glassman, The Pennsylvania State University '98
• Banners and graphic design: Jeffrey Hsu, University of Pennsylvania '03
• Tutorials and many FAQ articles: Christian Lledo, Drexel University '05

eRoom software © 1997-2008, EMC Corporation.  All rights reserved.
webCafé enhancements © 1998-2008, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.