On Tuesday, Penn State announced the launch of RecCenter, a tool that helps faculty and staff keep track of students’ recommendation letter requests. 

RecCenter was created by David Toews, an assistant professor of biology in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, Mitzi Ellis, a programmer and analyst with the college’s information technology group, and Chris Palma, Eberly’s associate dean for undergraduate students.

“Many of us have multiple mentees requesting letters of recommendation for a variety of institutions,” Toews said. “Often, our mentees are great at providing us with helpful to-do lists and gentle reminders of due dates. But when all of this is being organized in a busy email inbox, deadlines can get missed, and we really don’t want that — hence the inspiration to have a simple, functional tool that can help to manage letter-of-recommendation requests.”

After recommenders create an account on the site, they can invite students to join their list. If a student attends an outside university, recommenders can fill in their contact information manually. Recommenders also have the option to set a “remind date,” allowing the site to notify them if they are nearing the due date and have not yet submitted their letter. Only the requests, not the recommendation letters themselves, are stored on the site.

Penn State faculty and staff interested in using RecCenter can visit its website to learn more.