"It makes the head tutor more of an adviser and less of a dictionary of facts," said Rohit Chopra '04, a member of the council and the CUE.

Some CUE members expressed concerns that the proposed website would replace meetings with students--meetings that they said were crucial to building community in the department.

"We would be distressed if we thought this would be replacing face-to-face meetings," said Rory A.W. Browne, assistant dean of freshmen.

Some concentrations, including the psychology and computer science departments, are already beginning plans to develop such information, said Professsor of Psychology Stephen M. Kosslyn, who serves as head tutor of the department.

Representatives of the Instructional Computing Group said it might be possible to create a "toolkit" where departments could build websites from a shell the group would create.

Pederson said the information each department provided on the website would also help demonstrate its responsiveness to student concerns.

"What you get on the website is a reflection of the competency and openness of the concentration," she said.