This ranking identifies the most innovative users of information technology in the U.S. public sector and includes the Smithsonian Institution, the Federal Reserve, and the Utah System of Higher Education. PC Week noted in its March 15 issue that "Fast-Track" public sector institutions such as IU are using emerging technologies in creative ways to revolutionize how they deliver information and services to stakeholders.

"IU has had an exceptional year in developing new services, implementing new systems, and providing a modern, state-of-the-art information technology environment for the IU community," said Michael A. McRobbie, IU vice president for information technology and chief information officer. "Information technology tools and services are critical to our university, and we will continue to evaluate, innovate and deploy those services that are now fundamental to the educational process."

Looking at the extent to which advanced information technology has penetrated each institution, PC Week created its Fast-Track 100 using a scoring model that weighed the use and availability of technologies such as electronic commerce, intranet, data warehousing, Java, and high-speed networking technologies such as asynchronous transfer mode and Gigabit Ethernet.

IU has been particularly successful in the past year in providing desktop productivity tools through their Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement and in making major national and international contributions to the development of next-generation network architectures and infrastructures such as Abilene and TransPAC.

PC Week has identified other Fast-Track innovators in categories such as Internet technology, desktop and mobile technology, and manufacturing and enterprise technology. In November, PC Week will publish its third annual Fast-Track 500 which will cut across all categories. This is the first year PC Week has evaluated government and educational institutions.

Now in its 15th year, PC Week is a recognized leader in covering a broad range of information technology issues and reaches over 400,000 subscribers through its online and print magazines. PC Week is published by Ziff-Davis Inc., a division of Softbank. Its story can be read on the World Wide Web at http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,393441,00.html

IU, one of the oldest state universities in the Midwest, has been ranked among the 10 best public institutions of higher education in the United States. In addition to being selected as the site for the Abilene Network Operations Center, networking highlights at IU include having a high-speed connection to the vBNS and receiving a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a high-speed, international network connection called TransPAC between the vBNS and the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN). See the university's Web site at http://www.indiana.edu