"We expect that the presence of the portalswill encourage Houses and departments to keeptheir pages up-to-date," Steen said.

But Martin noted that the portal pages were notdeveloped to force Web sites to maintain theircontent.

"We're not in the business of telling people toupdate their Web pages," he said. "The importantthing is to enable people to get the informationthat is there."

The benefits of portal pages will not belimited to students, Martin said.

The system will make it possible for courseheads to access updated versions of class lists,assisting them at the beginning of the semesterwhen students frequently add and drop courses.

Alpert said systems much like the proposedportal pages are already in use elsewhere.

A similar system is already in use at theUniversity of California Los Angeles (UCLA.) AtHarvard Business School (HBS) a "Course Platform"on the Intranet makes all course assignments andother information available to students throughtheir computers.

Head of Technology Development at HBS James A.Farley said their system has worked well.

"We've received very positive feedback on theIntranet in general, and the Course Platformspecifically," he said. "The Intranet hasabsolutely increased student usage of the web forday-to-day information gathering andcommunication."

In planning the specifications for the portalpages, the committee consulted focus groupscomposed of people with differentperspectives--members of the Harvard ComputerSociety as well as less technologically savvystudents.

Developers have already finished a model forthe portal pages, but it currently runs slowerthan ultimately desired, Martin said.

Steen said a beta version of the new systemshould go on the Internet sometime this summer