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IU Bloomington again highly ranked among "most wired" universities
April 7, 2000
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Yahoo! Internet Life magazine's survey of America's "most wired" universities has ranked Indiana University Bloomington second among state schools for the fourth year in a row. This year IUB is ranked fourth overall, up five spots in the overall rankings from last year.
IU President Myles Brand said, "The university is proud to maintain our position among the top 'most wired' public universities in the nation. Our students and prospective students can be certain that the technology environment and services that they have access to at IU continue to rival the best in the United States."
IU Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Michael McRobbie said, "We have been and remain committed to providing a state-of-the-art information technology environment for the IU community. Information technology services are fundamental to the educational process, and our consistent top ranking reinforces the fact that IU's technology landscape remains at the forefront."
Now in its fourth year, the survey's participation nearly tripled this year with more than 1,300 schools from throughout the United States posting data through an online instrument. Respondents provided answers to a broad range of questions related to computer availability, personal computer usage, e-mail usage and access, Web space usage, networking and Web-related courses.
Based on a suggestion from the educational community that it would be helpful to compare similar institutions, Yahoo! divided the rankings into two lists for the first time this year -- the top 50 universities/research schools and the top 50 colleges/baccalaureate schools.
IUB provided information about the variety of ways information technology is incorporated into the campus community. Specific questions focused on the type of network access in residence halls and classrooms; the availability of onlin e registration, transcripts and course schedules; the amount of Web space and shared network file space available to each student; the types of online library resources and services; and the nature of the technical support available on campus.
In certain areas of the survey IU achieved especially high marks. Of the top five institutions, IU was second only to Dartmouth in the category of "recent computer buys." IU boasts a very high percentage of public computers purchased in the past two years. In addition, IU shared top honors with the New Jersey Institute of Technology for the amount of shared network file space available to all students.
For the first time this year, IU submitted data for Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) as well. Among universities and research schools, IUPUI was ranked 46th.
Yahoo! acknowledges that technology is a "moving target" and that their goal is to provide timely information about wired services as they exist on college and university campuses in any given year. They refined their questions and added new and relevant criteria based on input from students, parents and higher education administrators.
The full survey results will be posted on the Web on April 18 at http://www.wiredcolleges.com
(Karen Adams, 812-856-5596, kadams@ovpit.indiana.edu)