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America's Most Connected Campuses
foghorn666 writes "Forbes and the Princeton Review have posted their list of America's Most Connected Campuses, which measures the technological capabilities of the country's 357 top colleges and universities. They're looking at infrastructure stuff like whether wireless networks are available, if you can register for classes online, and so on - not really curriculum. But the results are interesting, and the winner not a huge surprise: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute."
RPI's not a huge surprise? I expected MIT at number one... not below the top 25. Same for many others. WTF?
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
I am pleasantly surprised to find my school ranked as #13 overall, ahead of Boston University, even!
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
That every year I hear the rankings of Top 10 party schools in Time, Newsweek, and other mainstream media outlets. I never hear a thing about campus rankings on issues that actually matter unless I turn to (relatively) obscure news sources like /.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
"...which measures the technological capabilities of the country's 357 top colleges and universities."
But where's the survey measuring the technological capabilities of the students?
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120 chairs?! What the hell am I supposed to do with 120 chairs...?
With as much emphasis as the survey put on wireless networking, I'd think good security would be one of the most important factors in a well-wired campus.
It's sad that something this high-profile apparently dismisses the importance of network security.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Or at least a Nokia sponsored campus?
And then once I got on, the slowdown was that our new superfast server (danube, IIRC) was bogged down running poorly written interpreted, recursive, memory-hogging programs by 500+ students all trying to get in under the wire.
Sigh. The good old days.
The CB App. What's your 20?
I'm from the National Univesity of Singapore, and we have a system called IVLE. Click on "IVLE Web tutorials" to have a look around. They've made this into a commercial product, and are now selling it to other colleges and Unis.
I'm not surprised to see that Rutgers isn't even listed in the rankings. That school always was cheap when it came to technology spending. Even now the liabraries still have computer running Pentium I processors. For shame...
Free Desk
A major portion of their analysis seems to be the ratio of students to computers, but that is rather unfair: they are only counting campus-owned computers, not the ones students bring with them. For example: my alma matter, the University of Washington, has two EXCELLENT, large computer labs, plus others scattered about the various buildings. They also have Wi-Fi network s (though not campus-wide). But still, the majority of students bring their own computers (wether laptops they carry or desktops in their dorms). And ya know what, it didn't even make the list! This is bull-crap!
William George
I read this on some IRC channel a couple'a years ago...
A: this school i'm trying to apply for is asking me all these stupid questions. like "why do you want to attend our school?"
B: tell them 'cuz you got a phat pipe that i can use to download porn, warez and mp3s.
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
i go to NJIT and i hate it, BUT, im involved in our schools smartcampus project and our campus is really wired, we shouldve been in the top 25. when i clicked on the details of my school on the forbes site, almost all of the things they said we did not have were lies.
- my userid is lower than yours
Many of the schools that are not ranked did not respond. For example, I go to Rice and the information about my school is just plain wrong.
I always thought /'DePauw' was just how people from NY/NJ/etc pronounced 'DePaul'
It sems that Student-Computer ratio could be keeping the traditional tech schools out while state schools that require incoming freshman to buy a new dell laptop get higher numbers. (You try telling the hardcore geeks that they all have to have the same IBM, DELL, whatever and see how long that lasts.)
I would take those ratios with a grain of salt. Walk through the dorms at a respectable tech school, and I promise you will see a plethora of "unofficial" networks that show a bit more technical competence.
my 00.2 USD.
Technology Consulting & Free Downloads
sadly, the most connected campus seems to be fairly irresponsible with their student data. 3 years ago, i did a search for a friend who went there, and got a hit on a page including student names matched with Social Security numbers and a test score. We sent an email to the IT guys there... a year later, I did it again- the page was still up, so I told them again. Out of curiosity, I just did the same search, and got the same list. How would you feel knowing that your school was this irresponsible with personal data?
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
I 've always thought the smaller university, the more connected it's campus.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
I have a problem with these ratings. According to the criteria, ratings are strongly based on how many computers there are per student. I dont know about your university, but i rarely use the campus computers. When i do, there are always many and they are mostly not used. Most people either have a desktop at home / dorm or a laptop they carry everywhere. To get my university to be on the top 25 on this list, they'll need to have even more unused machines scattered about campus.
In summary, I disagree with the rating criteria. I would like to see the rating based more on how many computers there are per student (including the ones the students own) not how many computers the campus owns per student.
I graduated from RPI this past may and I can definitely agree with their assesment. Almost everything could be done online, from registering for class to attending class (via live video streams) to contacting the bursar or financial aid. They put a lot of effort into it and it is nice to see some recognition.
Maybe they can stop sending be letters begging for cash. I've still got student loans, for crying out loud!
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I rmeember when I was looking for a college, the New Jersey Institute of Technology was ranked #1 Most Wired University by Yahoo!
They milked that thing for all it was worth. There were banners and posters everywhere.
In their defense, they were pretty wired for the time. Every single classroom and dorm room was wired for 10Mb ethernet; this was before wireless was popular or cheap, but I was surprised there was not 100Mb ethernet. And they had a partial T3 connection to the 'net. Also, you could register for courses online, which was a big deal back then. Most of my friends at other universities had to wait in line the old fassion way.
They lost that placing pretty quickly. Things had gotten a little better after I graduated, but still. I can easily see these things fluxuate very quickly.
What I find odd is that the current computer/student ratio is really really low. When I was going there, they'd outfit each student with a piece of garbage computer, but at least everyone had one. Maybe things have changed since?
I'm always disappointed to not see my alma mater, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on there, considering the WWW was pretty much started there (netscape)
I don't know who they talked to at Virginia Tech, but we have wireless, the school provides web pages, we do get student discounted computers, some courses do have streamable audio/video, honestly can't remember if we get network access in the dorm lounges but I know there are ports there so I'd think yes, they do provide multimedia equipment, we do have classes in emerging technologies, and WUVT (the local campus radio station) does in fact stream on the net http://www.wuvt.vt.edu/. So we definitely deserve to be a little better off than they claim.
Patrik
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Just your ordinary BOFH
http://killertux.org
Looks like all of the top 25 schools there are in states that have pretty cold winters. I wonder if that has an effect. In warmer places, people are probably more willing to walk to libraries and labs, etc.
I may twist orthodoxy to partly justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.
The article doesn't have enough data for all the schools. For instance Penn State, my alma mater, is pretty much in the dark ages according to Forbes. Penn State meets all of the questions, so they should all be yes. And the computer to student ratio is about 1/3 (one computer for every three students).
So I really question this article.
I can do almost everything online short of actually going to class. Yet we're not even ranked. I call complete bullshit on this article.
or is the Bradley University guy flipping me off?
Seriously, check out the pop-up pictoral list.
The only reason RPI is so high on the list is because the administration is a bunch of pandering suck-ups who will do whatever it takes to meet a trendy benchmark rather than actually earn respect the old fashioned way. RPI wants to be at the top of this list, so they excel at filling this requirements that Forbes is looking for. Yahoo does such a ranking, and for years RPI has been near the top of that list.
In reality, RPI's dorm network is a mess, they manditorily firewall off all students, and computer labs have disappeared because since 1999 they've required all students to have a laptop (and essentially required them to run windows). They've had among the worst problems with file sharing and the RIAA. Sure, there "is a" wireless network. Great. Ooh, and email access off campus! Too bad Rensselaer alumni free email for life is, as of this month, no longer.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
So I looked up the college I just graduated from and read the questions and stats. I think some of them are questionable. e.g. Does a tution include a computer? Answer was "No" but you are required to buy one from the school and it is just added on to your tution bill. So every student in fact has their own computer. Then the computer to student ratio does not take into account that every student has their own computer in their room. Just seems like some of the questions could of been stated better to me. There were a few others that were wierd like the handheld device one.
According to this article, Dartmoth has 12000 computers for 4000 students???
I work at Bradley University (squeaked in at #24) and I don't think this makes any sense. While we have an Internet2 connection and several buildings have wireless, our commodity connection was completely running at 99% capacity last year. This year we've separated student housing onto a completely separate service provider. So I have plenty of bandwidth to spare from my office and academic labs, I still hear complaints form students in the dorms.
Wouldn't calculating the bandwidth to student ratio make more sense than the computer to student ratio when determining "wiredness"?
This study makes no sense. My school, the University of Oregon, offers free web hosting, discounted computers, support for handheld computers, multimedia equipment to borrow, and courses in emerging technologies. Why is all the information at Forbes.com wrong?
I'm not saying the UO is high tech, or that they should have been rated higher. I just wonder if they screwed up the data from other schools, too.
Now has amazing connectivity. The entire campus (quite large) is entirely "lit up" with wireless hot-spots, and most buildings have an ethernet tap for every classroom seat.
To make it better, in the student housing, for some pitifully low amount ($25?), you get a 20 megabit(!) connection. All paid for by student fees, of course.
Now, I'm all for computers. But when tuition has tripled over the past ten years, parking costs have quadrupled, and student fees are going out the roof - all the time real services to students are decreasing - it makes me wonder if it's really worth it.
Am I really going to be a better engineer if I have a 20 megabit connection to my home vs. a 1- or 2-megabit? Not really. Will a sociologist find better research to study over the 20-megabit connection? Nope.
The matter extends into the classrooms - while some connectivity has a very good payoff, they've gone to such lengths that the cost has far, far exceeded the benefits. It's just plain irresponsible.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Anyone else notice that their school had incorrect information? Funny, I never knew NJIT didn't host personal websites, I guess that makes my website null and void under the DMCA... oh wait, I mean they just had misrepresented data.
The reports of NJIT lacking a wireless network are greatly exaggerated.
I also recall we were the top #1 wired school in the nation my frosh year or so ('99), but now not even given a rating despite a massive upgrade of equipment.
# fuser -v
#
NYU has aeron chairs in the library computer lab....doesn't that count for something? Or not, but maybe it explains why I pay $1000 a unit here.
Don't be fooled by the promise of connectivity and online registration! If you care at all about your sanity, go somewhere else! RPI is not a g -- asfedj;sah( &Gfsogf AGOYD SABDAISLHD!! MUST ... KILL ... LINCOLN.....
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
*sob*
I've been let down by my alma mater.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
So that is how they are going to get people to come to that dead town! Seriously, I visted there on my school tour. The campus is all on a hill and looked like half of it was under construction and the town was the last place I would care to live.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
This First Post brought to you by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who also brought you this story!
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
This article is completely inaccurate. I checked a couple of schools I'm familiar with and they were all missing multiple items. The rank is more a factor of whether the appropriate person filled out the form. In many schools, there are few administrators who actually know all of the services provided on the campus. Sadly, it's very difficult to get accurate information about technology at a school. The best way is probably to talk to a student. The admissions office has no idea what's going on. I remember listening to the admissions tour at one school. The tour guide lied on multiple facts which I had easy methods to verify. The tour guides are just there to sell the school.
The list of things supported by each school seems wrong... at least for my old school NJIT. About 7 things are marked incorrectly.
i'm not surprised my school's not on the top 25, but there were a few things wrong with how it was reported...
here's the page
1) the school DOES provide web pages.
2) the rest of the X's don't really make a school better. you can have stuff available even if it's not done through the internet. campus television (which is available throughout the state as well as satellite everywhere else) can be accessed ANYWHERE - needing a computer would be dumb. Why would being required to own a computer be good when there are thousands of computers on campus? if tuition included a computer, tuition would cost more. computers can be rented for like $15 a month. as for multimedia equipment... i don't see why that's on there... you get equipment if you're in a class that requires its use.
You've got to be kidding me. This list is completely bogus. As an example, my school, Carnegie Mellon isn't even in the top 25. 400 computers?? The running joke here is that there are, at the very least, 2 computers for every student at this campus, and we getting close to 3. Wireless is everywhere, PSC, security? CERT is here for god's sake.
Case Study: California Institute of Technology (who recently broke networking speed records)
The study says there is no wireless network (there is), school doesn't provide web pages (it does), can't register online (we do), no ethics policy (a very loose one: the honor code), school doesn't provide multimedia equipment (its available for use), doesn't stream its radio (our radio is only streamed).
What the study got right: I don't think classes are provided online, students are not required to own a computer, tuition doesn't include a computer, and I don't think courses are offered in emerging technologies (if by emerging technologies you mean MS Word). I wouldn't want to go to a school that has these features.
Personally, I think this idea of connectedness is a horrible measure of a school's IT saviness, and I'm not even talking about the erroneous study itself.
can't sleep. clowns will eat me.
The college I work for is listed in there unranked. It has 6 boxes with X's in them, 4 of those boxes are not correct.
I just looked over our school's info. A lot of it is wrong. It was off in at least three or four categories too, not just one or two.
Anyone else's school got the wrong info for it? From what I saw of the school where I work, I wouldn't give this list much credence.
That's all there is to it.
Bah, a true old-timer would have flamed him for saying "baud" when he meant "bps".
Ok, I graduated from RPI not too long ago, and noticed a glaring error in their report on the school. Yeah, I know we won this ranking, and I'm happy to see that. However, when I look at the question "Do students have access to Usenet newsgroups?" and see an "X" (no), I see something wrong.
We definitely have Usenet access, and even have a bunch of rpi.* newsgroups accessable inside the school. Someone definitely overlooked something.
This seems to be what they were basing their decisions on:
Is there a campuswide network?
Is there a wireless network?
Can students access e-mail away from school?
Does the school provide Web pages?
Does the school offer classes online?
Can students register online?
Can students do other administrative functions online?
Are students required to own a computer?
Can students get discounted computers?
Does the school support handheld computers?
Does the school stream audio or video of any courses?
Is network access available in dorm rooms?
Is network access available in dormitory lounges?
Is a computer ethics policy in place for the school?
Do students have access to Usenet newsgroups?
Does tuition include a computer?
Does the school provide multimedia equipment?
Does the school offer courses in emerging technologies?
Does the school stream its campus radio or TV stations?
Am I the only one bothered that they only ranked the top 25, and yet when looking at the "sort by rank" option, they act as though alphabetical order is rank for schools below 25? I mean, sure, you don't need to actually rank the bottom 50 schools or whatever, but don't then act as though you did.
Well I know for a fact that Rose Hulman Institute of Technology's numbers are wrong. It says 200, when it's more like 2500. And with 1700 students, that makes it's ratio far better than RPI's...
Things had gotten a little better after I graduated,
what was your major?
English?
They said that UIUC doesn't provide Web pages, which they did do, at least from 96-00 when I was there.
Also, I currently work for one of the top 10, and it certainly doesn't seem as well connected as UIUC did...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Yeah, NJIT sure did milk that "Most Wired" thing...long after Yahoo magazine closed down!
It's not bad but it's not great either.
The have these thin client sun terminals everywhere that have some early 90s interface...damn put gnome or something on there for fucks sake....
They do have wireless all over campus but this just makes students surf the web during class instead of paying attention. Basically a big waste.
I am a graduate student at RPI and I must say the technical infrastructre at the school is very impressive. I have several classes that are videoconferenced with the Hartford campus and other remote students who can communicate via microphone with the class. They clearly put a lot of effort into keeping the school on the cutting edge and it shows. I don't doubt that they'll be early adopters of WiMax which will be great!
Silly Dartmouth... do they think their students have 6 hands each?
Every time you read this, I am going against my principles.
It's just one letter away from 133T!
The CB App. What's your 20?
It's just a survey of what they claim to have, not whether any of it works. For example, my sister is a PhD candidate at Temple (#4) and says their IT is the most backward she has ever seen (dot matrix printers in student labs, for example)....
A more useful survey would be one of the computing experiences of the outgoing class at different colleges, that would give a picture of what was really going on, rather than who has a buzzword savy PR department.
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
Its about time RPI was number one in something other than student depression and nothing to do around campus! Go Shirley!
--------- I have no signature
North Carolina State University
It says the school does not supply web pages. This is bull crap since I've had a website on the school server for over a year. Plus it explains right here on state's own server HOW to set up your web page.
Create your own homepage
Heck, every freshman undergrad is required to take a computer class where they make their own website.
Now down to the bottom, it says the school does not provide multimedia equipment. Again, completely false. Look at this site again on ncsu.edu
Multimedia Reserve
This is why I hate school rankings like these. They are usually very misleading and often contain false information.
I work at the Catholic University of America, and their IT department consistently publishes misleading information about itself. The wireless network is virtually non-existant (basically just library and student center) and has not expanded in 3 or 4 years, and in some places contracted. Much of the internet is still 10Base-T. The on-line registration system is the subject of extreme student resentement. I suspect the student to computer ratio is artificially inflated by including the old 166 MHz Pentiums that are stacked up in hallways around campus. I have been to many universities lower on the list that are much better connected.
I'd expect a lot of smaller, more obscure schools to rank more highly. Particularly when the ratio of technology to student body is so heavily used. USD for example not only has a great ratio of desktops to students, but also provides PALMs to incomming students and has network/power conneectors for laptops at most classroom seats. Yet they only scored number 17.
It would seem that a college with very few students would have a far easier time beating the ratio game.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
So you're complaining that they're adding facilities, and you're complaining that the town its in is crappy? Where else can you live for $150 a month off campus?
I'm not defending RPI, in my 5 years, I learned more from cutting the grass there than studying, but all the same, you really needed to look at it through different eyes.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
No, not really. While most of you might not be surprised that Mississippi State University didn't make the list, I am surprised that it wasn't even considered. They looked at two schools in the state: University of Mississippi, which is smaller and not exactly well-known for being a technical or engineering school, and Millsaps College, a very small private Christian school which isn't much known for anything except, I think, business.
Mississippi State University has an excellent engineering college and its Computer Science department (particularly its Center for Computer Security Research, headed by Dr. Ray Vaughn) is very well-known. MSU was one of the original NSA Centers of Academic Excellence and had the first accredited Software Engineering degree program in the United States. We also play host to an Engineering Research Center which, until recently I believe, was co-funded by NSF. "The" supercomputer at MSU (and I say "the" because there are actually several, though the others are smaller and parts of active research projects) is ranked 158 in the Top 500 (incidentally, my internship this summer was for the owner of #47, as well as a few others in the top 100).
Whether or not MSU would have made the list, I don't know, but I am very surprised that it wasn't even evaluated. A great study, indeed.
SUNY stony brook
does campus have wireless network... they say no, but we have one in a large number of the buildings.
does campus offer cutting edge tech... stony brook's known for it, yet its shown as no
I think perhaps the site has some flaws in their ranking
I did notice that it says answers are as school provides 'em. maybe in the case of schools with wrong information they talked to people in the administration who really didnt know the answers as opposed to the IT depts
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
But it is very cheap to toss a dumb terminal up in the lobby. One ssh connection later and you can see if your boyfriend is meeting you for lunch or not. We were able to use print servers to print to the big ass expensive laser printer behind the desk in our dorm lobby. They'd put it in your mailbox. How's that for service? Yay not *having* to buy a printer!
http://forbes.com/finance/lists/8/2004/LIR.jhtml?p assListId=8&passYear=2004&passListType=Misc&unique Id=950143&datatype=Misc
s s_access.asp
there is a wireless network and it covers most of the school http://is.depaul.edu/communication/network/wirele
the school gives every student some webspace http://students.depaul.edu/students/ab.html
cti(one of the schools) streams both audio and video of all classes https://dlweb.cti.depaul.edu/login/login.asp
our radio is only streamed http://radio.depaul.edu/
That being said, my school was 12th, and unlike RPI, we have well over 10,000 students.
I am currently sitting in a classroom at RPI administering a midterm for a class I TA. I'm using a state of the art RPI issued laptop (running Debian) on their fast and complex (I'm told the internal campus routers use BGP) wired network, but I have VPN'ed wireless available. The services offered by the IT staff to the campus are vast and the campus is in the process of moving to IP telephony. The voicemail system is brand new (Cisco Unity) and emails some people their voicemail (me). That being said, coming to RPI was one of the worst choices I have ever made, but that's probably because I should have gone to a liberal arts school.
I go to Bradley university. It is ranked at #24 and our Tech SUCKS!! Do we have wifi, Yes. BUT, in very few buildings, not in the dorms, and the only outside hot spot is run by my computer group from a house. We have a high computer student ratio because every have to buy a computer or rent a POS from the school. Our network admins are lucky to keep our netowrk running half the time. A "simple upgrade" to out blackboard online system took it our for 2 weeks and lost the the teachers attached files. The very few servers in the CS department are not used and the ones that are terminal servers have 10mbps connections. Hell, our CS department DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A LAB!!! Personally I think this school's technology sucks. Some community colleges around here have better wireless access and labs. I think they need to check how the rank these schools in the future.
- Is there a campuswide network?: yes
- Is there a wireless network?: yes
- Can students access e-mail away from school?: yes
- Does the school provide Web pages?: yes
- Does the school offer classes online?:
- Can students register online?: yes
- Can students do other administrative functions online?: yes
- Are students required to own a computer?: No, thats what labs are for!
- :Can students get discounted computers? yes
- Does the school support handheld computers? yes
- Does the school stream audio or video of any courses?: yes
- Is network access available in dorm rooms?: yes
- Is network access available in dormitory lounges?: yes
- Is a computer ethics policy in place for the school?: yes
- :Do students have access to Usenet newsgroups?: yes
- Does tuition include a computer?: No, thats what labs are for!
- Does the school provide multimedia equipment?: yes
- Does the school offer courses in emerging technologies?: yes
- Does the school stream its campus radio or TV stations?: yes
Looks like they didn't even bother doing the minimal amount of research.There's not just wrong answers for the schools on the list, there's a number of large schools missing from the list. For example, University of Wisconsin - Madison is the only UW school listed, even though UW-Stout would rank far higher on the list (wireless laptop for every student, computer registration, student web sites, etc). UW-Milwaukee isn't on there either, even though it's a larger school than many listed. Silly study is wrong in so many ways.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Too bad they just decided to revoke free email for their alumni ... instead charging $15/year for basic email service.
Some of the criteria for ranking seem like BS to me.
For example, two of the questions they asked campuses were:
Are students required to own a computer?
Does tuition include cost for a personal computer for each student
Looking at the full list of data, you'll find that many schools have computer:student ratios that are almost 10 times as high as ranked schools, but don't fall in the top 15. It seems to me that these schools are doing a lot more to provide computers for their lower income students-- students who can't always afford to buy a computer for college.
Kick ass! My alma mater is ranked 15th. And ya'll think we're a bunch of hillbillies and rednecks around these parts. ;-) I'm happy to see that KU (Univeristy of Kansas) didn't even make the list. Serves them right for beating us this year in football. I guess even a one-armed, deaf, blind, dyslexic, quadriplegic squirrel finds a nut once a decade or so. :-)
I go to a community college http://www.grcc.edu/ and we have a pretty decent network, considering we have over 14,000 enrolled students who share 1 TB of HDD space... They even have fiber op!!!! I smell discrimination against community colleges here..... Just one look at our homepage and you'll see that we're better than most other community colleges!
Having personally gone wardriving through Cambridge, I would also expect MIT at number one, and at least see CMU up there too. Nice to see Pittsburgh having not one but TWO entries -- Duquesne and Pitt. A little disappointing, tho, isn't this 2004?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
My old school (community college) finally hit 1200 while I was there. I loved being able to register online. It's so much easier to get your schedule organized. Especially from home rather than having to fill out lots of paper work to add or drop a class it just takes a few clicks.
They got PSU completely wrong.
:)
:)
From the Top:
Is there a campuswide network? Yes
Hey, Forbes got one right!
Is there a wireless network? No
There is not wireless completely covering the huge campus, but there are wireless hotspots all over the place. This admittedly is a problem since only a handfull are centrally managed and use the University's central authentication system.
Can students access e-mail away from school? No
Yeah, because we don't offer POP3 (SSL POP3 and Kerberized POP3 for that matter). And if that doesn't count we wrote our own frikkin (extremely popular) webmail application for crying out loud (none of the existing ones scaled all that well or made use of our existing infrastructure)
Does the school provide Web pages? No
Wrong again
Does the school offer classes online? No
World Campus
Can students register online? No
Since about 1998 or so.
Can students do other administrative functions online? No
I cannot think of any administrative functions you CANNOT do online.
Are students required to own a computer? No
True, but only because just about every one does and if they do not there are general use labs at every campus.
Can students get discounted computers? Yes
Forbes now has two correct answers.
Does the school support handheld computers?
That's kinda vague. I'll accept no for now but that is being actively worked on.
Does the school stream audio or video of any courses? No
Yes
Is network access available in dorm rooms? No
Has been for years possibly a decade (there was when I got here in 96)
Is network access available in dormitory lounges? No
There are now three correct answers, go Forbes
Is a computer ethics policy in place for the school? No
Yes, remember who (for good or ill) pioneered the Napster II stuff? That was as a result of the ethics policy.
Do students have access to Usenet newsgroups? No
Since Usenet existed (we were one of the first Bitnet nodes for crying out loud)
Does tuition include a computer? No
Four! Four correct answers...ha ha ha ha
Does the school provide multimedia equipment? No
Yes
Does the school offer courses in emerging technologies? No
I know quite a few professors who would be ticked at that answer.
Does the school stream its campus radio or TV stations?
WPSU, For all your NPR and PRI needs
If all the stats Forbes has on schools are as accurate as this one, then this report means nothing.
Finkployd
According the survey it says Berkeley doesn't have a wireless network. That is incorrect, it does and it is all over campus. It is pretty damn good.
When you look under the info under each school, they sometimes get information incorrect.
For example, University of Florida does require computers of new students (and has for a couple of years), this listing says they don't.
They also do stream some classes over the internet (mostly buisness classes), the listing says that there are not classes streamed.
Also, while they are listed as having campus wide wireless internet...it is not really campus wide. The heart of campus is covered...as are many of the classroom's...but there are still a lot of areas and buildings were you can't get wireless access.
Where are the canadian universities?
The Forbes survey results are bogus.
I looked up Univ. or Washington (where I work) on their list. Forbes counts 1200 computers for 28,000 students. There might be 3000 computers just in my building. I'd estimate closer to 20,000 for the whole university.
They also erred on several other survey points:
- Students *can* get discounts on computers.
- The school *does* stream some courses.
- USENET *is* available (widely, I might add).
- The school *does* offer courses in emerging technology (thanks in large part to certain benfactors in Redmond).
- And the campus radio station *is* streamed live.
My guess is that Forbes called the admissions or public relations department and surveyed the receptionist.
http://forbes.com/finance/lists/8/2004/LIR.jhtml?p assListId=8&passYear=2004&passListType=Misc&unique Id=950236&datatype=Misc
likewise, my own alma mater is filled with eroneous data... of the list, here are the "No"s that should be reconsidered...
YES:
Is there a wireless network?
Can students access e-mail away from school?
Does the school provide Web pages?
Does the school offer classes online?
Can students register online?
Can students do other administrative functions online?
Is network access available in dorm rooms?
Is a computer ethics policy in place for the school?
Do students have access to Usenet newsgroups? [NOTE: I'm surprised at how many campuses don't provide usenet access. PSU doesn't carry any alt.binaries.* but does cover basically everything else.]
Does the school provide multimedia equipment?
Does the school offer courses in emerging technologies?
Does the school stream its campus radio or TV stations?
LIMITED:
Does the school stream audio or video of any courses?
Is network access available in dormitory lounges?
PSU University Park has approximately 2066 computers publically accessible to anyone on campus, plus several hundred more reserved for specific majors. Additionally there are 3 supercomputer clusters (ranked in the lower-200s on the top-500 list) for high-powered computing.
It's still not top-25 material, but it's much much better than Forbes claims.
Disclaimer: I AM employed by the PSU ITS department. I am not a fan of PSU Football, though. Go other team!
Some complained that their school's checklist were erroneous, leading to lower scores.
RPI's checklist had only two X's: "usenet" and "PC included in tuition". We actually have had usenet since it's inception before the Internet. Students get free access still, but currently there are no binary newsgroups. Also, since a standard laptop must be purchased by incoming freshmen, it is for all intents and purposes part of your tuition.
Thus RPI really deserved a perfect score and is legitimately a top wired school, by these methods. From the text of the article, though, it actually looks like RPI's tech focus in their curriculum is what really earned them the top spot. The "engineer factory" mentality produces ready-to-hire techies, yielding excellent starting salaries and placement rates for graduates.
Some other reasons it stands out:
- you can use homemade shotgun antennas to access the wireless network from near campus -- they'll help you make one
- a lucratively successful distance learning program
- HP founders are alumni who keep the labs stocked with newest equipment
- sweet deal on the standard laptop: IBM T40
- free alumni email for life
- now building a ridiculously elaborate electronic arts facility
- in the ultimate metaphor for tech worship, the building used as the main computing center and server room is a former church.
I did my undergraduate (in Comp. Sci.) at Carnegie Mellon, and now I am doing my graduate studies at Cornell. Carnegie Mellon most assuredly was much more wired than Cornell. I took at a look at Carnegie Mellon's 'survey' and they got some things blatantly wrong (at least as I remember it): The following should be marked yes I think! Does the school provide Web pages? Does the school offer classes online? (indirectly - see icarnegie.com) Is a computer ethics policy in place for the school? (there is) Do students have access to Usenet newsgroups? (of course it does) Does the school offer courses in emerging technologies? (they do in my opinion) The following questoins i think are very suspect: Are students required to own a computer? Depends who - some people in certain curricula are required at CMU, however why on earth should every student be required a computer?! The school provides many clusters that are open 24-7 where students can work if they need to. Does tuition include a computer? Why on earth should it? I don't want my school wasting tuition money on a computer for me, I want to decide myself what kind of computer I have and what I put on it (Linux or Windows for example). Does the school provide multimedia equipment? Same as above
RPI is one of the top participators on i2hub. At least few terabytes are shared by those guys, and download speed from them (Im at UMBC) range from 150kb/sec-500kb/sec.
Let's hear it for the Tute Screw!
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Forbes claims that CMU does not offer:
* Web pages
* Provide a computing ethics policy
* Stream campus radio or TV
* Offer courses on emerging technologies
* Support handheld computers
* Provide multimedia equipment
* Provide access to Usenet newsgroups
I don't know when they started streaming campus radio, but they've provided the rest of these for at least a decade.
Courses on emerging technologies? Carnegie Mellon _produces_ emerging technologies.
The fact that requiring every student to buy a laptop of a specific kind gets you extra points is ridiculous as well.
Aside from the blatant mistakes in MIT's data, the listings for Oregon schools is terrible. Of the three major universities (UO, OSU, and PSU) the survey only lists University of Oregon and three other small universities. WTF? OSU is one of the core members of the Internet2 project and it's not even considered? PSU has one of the only permits in Portland to dig up the street and lay fiber--we even have fiber to our parking garages! Nevermind that the engineering department works relatively closely with Intel and some of the research here may show up in the network gear you use.
I went to RPI, so let me offer some insight on the campus.
:-(.
Computers Per Student -- Mobile computing is a requirment for students. Every student is required to have a laptop computer. Each year the 'tute offers some flavor of IBM Thinkpad. In classes such as Comp Sci, and CAD, the student does all of his/her work on their own computer. Additionally, many students have desktop computers because the older laptops sucked for games.
Campus Network -- Probably pretty standard. Connections in every dorm room and lounge in the dorms. Each building on campus has laptop computer labs and often many classes take place in these labs. Counter-Strike in Chem Mat, no problem!
Wireless Network -- As far as I remember, the only public wireless was in the student union and the DCC (where the largest lecture halls were). A year or two ago, they restricted these connections to VPN access. With regard to that other dude who had issues, the cisco linux client never worked for me either
Remote Access -- Getting e-mail from off campus was not a problem.
Provide Web Pages -- I think there is 10 MB of space for each student. Many students got static IP addresses and hosted their web sites off their own computers. (This is RPI after all) The space offered by RPI was normally used for classwork.
Online Courses -- I never took any, but I think they are offered. One room in the DCC has video camera's to transmit to other locations, although this might just be the Hartford campus.
Registration -- Registration is online -- Unless there is some kind of restriction on the class, then you have to get some paperwork filled out.
Online Administrative Functions -- You can see your transcripts and outstanding bills online in addition to the registration process.
Ownership Requirements -- As before, laptops are required, but ownership is not. You can lease your laptop if you choose.
Computer Purchase -- The laptops are IBMs top of the line T series laptop at the time. Usually about 3000 grand which probably covers the software licensing more than it covers the cost of the hardware.
Handheld Computing -- If you count laptops, as before, they are required in class for some classes.
Dorm Access -- Yes, already covered.
Lounge Access -- ditto.
Ethics -- There might be a policy, but maybe I shouldn't indicate if it was widely followed or not... Do a Google search on Phynd...
Usenet -- I don't know.
Computers Provided -- Some students, not myself, are special. They received a free laptop as incentive to come to RPI. This one really steams me as I got much better grades then some of my "slacker" friends. Sorry guys, nothing personal. Many female students were given their laptops as well, but there may be other reasons for this.
Multimedia Equipment -- I don't know if its available for general use, but the EMACs majors could borrow equipment whenever. Of course, many of them needed this equipment for their schoolastics.
Emerging Curricula -- Intro to Cognition and Gaming (Some students said this class was better than sex -- Again, this is RPI) and Game Development. Need I say more?
Digital Streaming -- I don't know. Sorry.
I checked on Penn State, and most of the questions were answered no, which is wrong. All of them should have been YES, except for two of the questions. I graduated in 2000, and they've only gotten better when it comes to technology.
Most universities and university colleges here in Norway lets you do all the administrative tasks like registering for classes and applying for 'scholarship' (we all get a basic scholarship if pass all exams) online.
My university college also offered everything from notes from the professors to complete lections. All there availible in case you can't/won't attend personally.
My student housing has a 100mbit connection (completely unfiltered and with static DHCP (30 day lease)) for $15/month. Downloading from large sites like microsoft.com will give me about 4-5MB/s, and internally we often reach 10MB/s. Quite nice for running servers of all kinds (though extremely excessive bandwidth usage will cause you to be disconnected, otherwise there would be a few thousand dumpsites in no time), which in turn has given me a great upportunity to experiment with networking solutions.
In the featured top connected schools, #15 went to Kansas State Uni. The image shows students and instructor using Table PCs. Tablets have great utility in education.
RPI trivia: their main computer labs are in a stone chapel, complete with stained glass windows.
I really can't tell how they did the research for the article. With so many basic wrong answers for GW, I can't imagine that they surveyed the schools themselves. Some of the questions that were wrong were the first things they tell you about on the tours when you visit; I can't imagine that GW wouldn't tell Forbes what they tell high school seniors. If the writer did the research himself, he needs to think about another career. The same can be said if they had interns doing the work, which is probably the case. But I still don't understand, many of these questions could have been answered by simple searches from GW's homepage.
Simply said, this article has no founding whatsoever. If other school's information is as wrong as GW's, then this article can't even be taken with a grain of salt.
I think I would be more impressed with the institution that must clearly be offering a course in typing with your feet:
22 Ursinus College PA
student:1,467
computers:1,600
ratio: 109:100
I think that is a fabulous way to increase productivity (and given the number of spelling mistakes I see in papers I grade, I think some students must have already taken this course).
Hey guys, check this out. RPI said they'd give all of their alumni free e-mail. That's pretty cool isn't it?
But, unfortunately if you go here, you'll find out that they're charging now. That's got to cause them to lose some points.
I don't like how they don't put the true reason on the front page, they hide it away in the FAQ
What does everybody else think about this with regards to the article?
WebCT's main fault is not that is it proprietary but its useablility (or lack there of...)
I am responsible for 650 students at a large state university here in the south. WebCT is the most efficient way of distrobuting test scores since I don't have to give the tests back to each individual, but undortunately for me the interface of WebCT absolutely blows and the help files are irrelevant to what you need to do.
Well, this seems to be odd to me as well. My former college was Washington State University and according to the information there is no campus wireless network and there is not streaming classes. Both of those were untrue 2 years ago. So, I'm assuming whoever they are getting information from is uninformed. More then this, however, no school will ever be able to stay on top of the list for any amount of time. IT is an investment that is done in incrememental stages. You dont reinvent the wheel every year and whichever campus has upgraded last will be the best. Therefor, I think what is a more imporant and less quantifiable measure is what is the administrations view on IT. In any case I think I see this as irrelavent.
this article is utter horseshit. CMU satisfies almost everyone of those requirements (except one maybe). Also The "students are required to own a computer" one applies to some schools (Tepper) at CMU. We were one of the first schools to offer online registration, a campus wide wireless network etc etc, and WE didn't make the list. that is some shit.
Wow, did they even DO research?!
Does the school offer courses online?
Should have been yes.
Does the school stream audio/video of courses?
Should have been yes. It's not ALL courses, but it is offered.
Computer ethics policy in place?
Yes, the "Acceptable Use Policy, or AUP. Every person in the technology departments knows about this. All students have to agree to abide by it or their accounts are revoked.
Does the school provide multimedia equipment?
We have a friggin MOVIE LAB for editing videos. Jesus, did they even LOOK?
Does the school stream campus radio?
WWPI - Internet and CCTV radio station. So yes, it is streamed via internet.
ok, so they got 5/19 WRONG. Where does that place us?
Every CS class I've taken has required you to interact with professors and other students on newsgroups.
It doesn't seem like this data would be very useful to Slashdotters. Most of us live in Computer Science or Engineering, which are bound to have their own computer resources seperate from the rest of the school.
I know at UW-Madison the general computer resources are pretty lackluster but the Engineering college has its own lab which is much more useful. They even provide their own wifi which is seperate from the wireless access for the general university. The ratios for students with access to these seperate resources will clearly be different. It's not clear if the data in this report has taken this into account.
These results are a bit bogus. First of all, it's all about how many computers they have, not really about how connected they are. It doesn't go into statistics of dorms being connected (or are they all these days?), classrooms being connected, campus WiFi, etc. It's lab computers per student.
Also, the numbers are off. I know there's more computers on one floor of the Science Building of Harvard UNIVERSITY than they listed as having overall.
Zef
What about MEEPT?!?!
When I first read the subject of this post I was picturing a tin shack with Jason's mom's head on the table....
Hm... looking at my school I see at least 4 of the check marks are wrong. How can you pretend to do a valid survey if so much of your data is off?
I suppose it could have been a fluke. Anyone else see this for their schools?
No, no. RPI needs online registration like no other.
It's just not evident unless you've waited in line at the Playhouse to stick your bubble sheet in the right scantron machine. Thankfully, this doesn't happen anymore.
So.... Forbes didn't really check their info about all the schools prior to do thing survey.
I know a lot of people are jumping up to defend their old school, but here's one more...
I attended Rose Hulman Institute of Technology. They score fairly low on the computers to students ratio, and there's a good reason for that... students are required to buy laptops as freshman.
They don't offer any classes online. They are a very small campus, and pride themselves on not even having TAs teach classes, so I can't imagine them offering them online. Well, and the majority of students live on campus, so there's no point... the same pretty well applies to streaming campus radio. When campus radio is in that dorm a few minutes walk away, why bother?
My graduating class was the first to require laptops; I was a freshman in fall of '95.
It's not "America's Most Connected Campuses."r ticles/find/rankingsFAQ.asp
It's just the "connectedness" of The Princeton Review's "The Best 357 Colleges."
These schools are selected based on The Princeton Review's "high opinion" of these particular schools.
http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/a
Forbes.com's article title is both misleading and irresponsible.
I'm a senior at DPU. They are nothing but hype. The CS department is not that great. They're just now starting to teach java, and almost no one knows anything about .net
The helpdesk support is beyond abysmal. Viruses are horribly rampant, and wireless network coverage sucks..they claim it is all over campus, but one of the most used academic buildings still doesn't have any coverage.
The whole thing is nothing but hype. They started forcing freshmen to buy Dell laptops, which are supported on campus by a Dell guy, but the turnaround is shit for repairs, and the help for kids is nonexistent.
Mac support has been nonexistent the past two years, I know because I was the _sole_ dedicated mac support person, and I'm a student. This year it is beginning to get better, but we still don't have people that really know what they're doing, and professors asses are kissed a little too much--doing what they say gets in the way of a functional network.
In short, DePauw SUCKS, don't go there, don't waste your $34k a year.
The best thing about RPI is that they have no problem pissing off their Alumni, even sometimes going out of their way to do so.
Forbes listing for the University of Michigan has a couple of incorrect items.
We do have a wireless network on 'some portions' of campus (and it's growing).
We have provided space for web pages for quite some time. In fact, we just upgraded the standard amount of space available to 1GB per person.
Their methodology is weak. Users don't care about technology, they care about how easy and seamless it is to use.
Was number one in the rankings a few years ago, and since has dropped below the top 25. Taking a quick look, though, it seems like the data that at least some of the Forbes Data is wrong. "Wireless network" should probably not be checked, at least unless there were major upgrades over the summer (which, I'll admit, is possible. But a little bit in the science and computing buildings doesn't count.) Students obviously can access email away from school, via webmail or ssh. The school does provide web pages- both via WSO, and colrain (although the default directories no longer have public_html in them, I think, so you have to know that.) - It also seems like the inclusion of usenet servers here is a bit antiquated. It's not quite as bad as saying "has a gopher server," it also doesn't really seem indicative of a wired campus, so to speak. More interesting would be IP's per student. Do they have direct connections, or is everything routed through a proxy server of some kind? Some schools are almost completely open, others barely let anything other than web traffic through their gateways.
I was reading the list for Penn State.. WOW. Whoever did that research really sucks. Don't trust what it says about any school you DO NOT go to... for example (and I wrote this verbatim to forbes):
[quote]
I was reading the article and noticed some major errors in your list... With Penn State University at least.
here are the errors I found:
1> can students access email away from school: you put no, but they do have web and pop3 mail you can access from anywhere.
2> Does the school provide web pages? You put no, but they do.. www.personal.psu.edu/
3> Does the school offer online classes? You put no, but they do, located at the world campus section of penn state
4> Can students register online? You put no, but they can, and do... E-Lion provides all those tools.
5> Can students do other administrative functions online? You put no, but they can do other featuers.
6> Is the network accessible in dorm rooms? You said no, but that's just dumb. You guys should know Penn State partnered with Napster to give the kids access to napster to help curb illegal downloading.. of course there is access in the dorm rooms!
7> Is a computer ethics policy in place for the school? You said no, but I know first hand there is, and Penn State is really strict on stuff.
8> Does the school stream its campus radio or TV stations? You said no, but they do... WPSU is streamed, that's how callers from Maryland can listen and call in.
All in all I'm VERY disappointed in this list. I can't speak for any other schools, but I can't trust what you guys list either. You guys did NOT do your research, and this is a poorly done peice of crap.
[/quote]
a 1:1 undergrad to computer ratio. every incoming freshman is assigned a laptop computer (dell d600) and when they graduate, they buy it for $1. In addition we have tons of wired classrooms and wireless areas on campus. Not bad for a small liberal arts university!
www.stmarytx.edu
JediLuke
-Do or Do Not, There is no Try
Prospective college students and their parents will be using bogus information like this while researching colleges.
They claim the school I went to (Harvey Mudd) doesn't provide web pages (I assume student web pages), but students do have space where they could put a web page. I'm not sure why this doesn't count...
----- "Type theory is like pretzels on crack." -- random friend
yeah -- my alma matter -- dear old Renesselaer
funny when I was there they still didn't have internet for students.
"I'd rather talk with THE registrar personally than have some webform. She can ask me how things are going, suggest alternate courses, and generally keep the system running smoothly."
Please. First of all, you never talk to THE registrar. you talk to the registrar's assistants. Secondly, it is your advisors job to recommend other courses. The registrar just keeps track of who is registered for what and the grades and status databases. You have obviously never talked to a registrar before.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
Here's some survey questions that might have actually meant something for this survey:
- You asked if dorm rooms are networked and if there is a wireless network, but what is the bandwith of said connections?
- What is the bandwith of the pipes leading to the rest of the internet from the campus (i.e. Campuses on internet2 should get some kudos on this survey.)
- What is the average disk space provided for student accounts?
- What is the bandwith/download limit on student accounts hosted by the server? (It is not enough to just ask if each student can have a web page, if they are all extremely limited.)
- Is there a standardized setup (hardware or OS) everyone must have (if Yes, this is a mark AGAINST. Intelligent Campus IT departments can and should be able to handle the heterogenious network that best serves the students.)
- What percentage of the 1024 well-known service port numbers are firewalled off and thus impossible to use from student's connections? (A campus that has cable laid everywhere, but only allows web clients and nothing else is less connected than one that will let you get at the full range of services the internet provides.)
From the questions you see above, you can probably guess that when it comes to being more "connected", I am of the opinion that less policing equals more connected. The locked-down abilities should be the minimum that basic security will allow.
And if people running big servers from their dorm rooms is a concern, that should only be policed by tracking bandwith usage and responding when it is abused, NOT by just automatically making a particular protocol verbotten regardless of how much traffic a student is generating with it.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The schools who placed highest were the ones who filled in the surveys most convincingly (or filled them in at all).
Most of that stuff on the survey is bullshit. There's no concept of bandwidth, density, etc., just mostly a buzzword bingocard (and no scoring rubric).
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
There are two complaints I have, with the interviewer and the one being interviewed. I'll start with my complaint with the school being interviewed.
The administration in all schools love/hate these lists. It's a crude way to provide a relative measure of a school's performance.
fta: To determine the rankings for America's Most Connected Campuses, The Princeton Review solicited data from 357 top colleges and universities around the country, asking them twenty questions about the technological sophistication of their campuses.
That tells me that the administration had the opportunity to present to the interviewer. Most importantly, they have the opportunity to even bend the truth a little. Given that, WHY would they answer 'no' to anything that was even remotely a 'yes'. Answering 'no' is guaranteed to reduce your score and a higher score means that you can brag about the rank even more during admission season.
Take the example of my alma mater: Stevens.
question: Does the school stream its campus radio or TV stations?
answer: no.
Really? Just a quick look at their website states, "WCPR is now online and accessible both on-campus and off-campus via our Internet webcast! (see the link to the right)". Yes, it does work and they've had streaming radio there for years - just check the wayback
If they answered yes to that one, they'd have 5 'no' answers and get listed in the top 25 - where I'm sure they'd love to be. Someone is not promoting the school well enough and to drop from being #1 last year to this.... As an alumnus, I'm rather disappointed.
On the complaint I have with the interviewer: IMO, the worst question is "Does tuition include a computer?". Any school that answered yes to that should be avoided. Yet a 'yes' would give you a higher score...
In defense of Forbes, they do list a lot of the details. At least one can point out the failures in their methodology to anyone interested.
This is not my sig.
Well they didnt bother with my school (MSOE) which is a shame. Every full-time student must get a "technology package" which includes a laptop which gets replaced every 2 years. Mine is a compaq hw8000. Granted it's not the largest school, but it's what we do. Even smaller colleges are included. So how did they choose their selections?
WTF? BSU didn't make the list? We have complete wireless coverage of the entire main campus, all dormitories and even student apartments are fully connected. On-line registration, transcript checking, housing/tutition payments on-line, plus a whole host of other things I haven't mentioned. Most classes are a minimum of about 30% on-line content (granted i'm a CS major). So either I just didn't spell "boise" right when looking for a school, or this whole list is a bit wacky.
Where did they get their facts? Looking at my two alma maters (Berkeley and the University of Washington), their charts have a number of glaring inaccuracies.
As an example, UW does offer discount computers at their student computer store. Several courses are streamed online. There is a campus news server where several classes have groups--and often courses use an even easier online news-like service through the Catalyst (www.catalyst.washington.edu) services. There are labs stuffed with multimedia machines for students to edit video on (and these are NICE systems too), and free courses are offered throughout the quarter on a variety of cool technology topics for anyone who wants to take them (http://depts.washington.edu/sacg/).
So hey Forbes, instead of sending out an idiot with a clipboard to these schools who gets out his car, turns a 360, checks some things off, and heads out to the next campus, how about doing a little bit of research?
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
Why, you ask? Well, I'm not going to say that RPI is a bad school, because it isn't, but is its IT really better than Caltech or MIT's? I have to question that, though without better data it's impossible for me to say. But I can with a fair amount of certainty that Caltech and MIT are probably superior in that respect when compared to the University of North Dakota. I mean, c'mon, who is going to believe that?
As far as the methodology goes, there was weight given to things that don't really matter- for instance, whether computers are required. A lot of schools don't require them per se, but they are a de facto necessity that no one in their right mind would matriculate without. A better indicator would have been computer purchasing programs- but that isn't what got weighted.
I also have issues with the computer to student ratio. I went to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. According to this "study", there are only 3 computers for every 100 undergraduate students. What a crock! As a matter of fact, the number they list is 100 computers open for public use by students on the entire campus. I think not- I was there, and there are way more computers than that. I could not give you an exact number because I never bothered to count, but suffice to say more than 100. We are talking about a top 50 university, not Podunk U here. Also, most undergraduates have computers available to them through their department in addition to public terminals- the methodology does not consider that at all.
In the end, I find studies like this to have fairly erroneous conclusions. They never seem to agree with one another- one list may have a school like Case in the top 10, and in this one it doesn't even break the top 25. Nope, but the U. of N. Dakota is right up there! When I think of network innovation, I think of Case, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Caltech, RPI, etc., not U. of N. Dakota. They weighted the wrong variables, and were sloppy about collecting data on those variables. In short, this study isn't worth diddly-squat, and those that read into it should be aware that the bad data and poor theory obfuscate the matter of which schools are really the most "connected".
None of these surveys bothered to address anything usefull. Quality. Many of these places which show all these wireless features and ports in every room have very high downtime and super high pings. There are actually some colleges where you try to play online video games and your ping is consistantly 400 or more ping most of the day unless you play at 4am. And the university's link to the internet is saturated most of the day. (not to mention significant downtime).
You gotta realize that many on that list would not make the 'cut' by anyone but the sorority girl's standards ("oh, as long as I can check my email and register for classes...").
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
Campuses? Shouldn't that be campi?
What would be really interesting if they could do a study to let us know if this high or low amount of technology makes any difference whatsoever in terms of comparitive academic competency and overall education and research.
My Australian based university is full of wireless hot spots, internet cafes, etc and has a very sophisticated online portal, but the actual standards are not improved whatsoever by it.
I would suggest that this sort of technology is a convinience, but doesn't have a relation to educational competence.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
..connected schools, ie. not campuses. Did any of these even think about "distance learning" - i found a few lines of claims at the #1 mentioned, but no real information. The internet is invented by now, they even use it, so why don't they GET IT?
...sorry about that, i guess they don't want that kind of spelling on their nonexistant virtual campuses anyway...
I'm not so sure that you can really say MIT has registration online. While you can preregister for classes online, when reg day comes, you have to pick up a form which has what you prereged for, run it by your advisor to get it signed, and drop it off somewhere else.
They miight require, for "online registration", that the process be online from start to finish.
I have to call into question the accuracy of this survey. Under my campus, UC San Diego, they have 4 answers that should be yes marked as no: Is there a wireless network? Does the school provide Web pages? Does the school support handheld computers? Does the school stream audio or video of any courses? I know for a fact all these should be marked yes as I use the wireless network (which has been up for at least 4 years) daily with a PDA, have had classes which post audio & video copies of all lectures, and use the web space provided on one of the campus' Solaris servers for my personal web page.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Online Courses (Yes)
This is technically true, but the only one I know about it an internship that requires posting on discussion boards.
Handheld Computing (Yes)
The closest we get to true on this is that we have a wireless network. No course uses them, and our help desk doesn't list them as items they'll support.
Streaming Courses (Yes)
False. We have(again, to my knowledge) no streaming courses; the closest one can get is that some materials for the School of Music are online for easy distribution.
Ethics (Yes)
We can't even get an Honor Code approved, let alone an AUP.
Usenet (Yes)
Double-plus false. We don't have a Usenet server on campus, and the NNTP port(119) is packet shaped to a mere kilobyte a second.
Emerging Curricula (Yes)
We don't have any courses devoted specifically towards their criteria(Robotics, Comp Security, Video Games).
To the credit of the school and the CS department, there is some really cool stuff going on, but the above items are dubious at best. I doubt we really belong at #3
I agree some of these statistics are incorrect, I go to CMU and can tell you:
-School does offer webspace
-School does offer courses online
-There is a computer ethics policy (freshman are required to take a course on it)
There are probably a few other inaccuracies, not 100% sure about them though.
The article information is incorrect.
*UW students do have access to USENET.
*The school does provide multimedia equipment. You just have to know who to contact about it.
*The school does stream video of courses. It isn't live that I know of, but they've been doing it since 1999.
*UW DOES stream its own TV station and has been doing so for quite a while. In fact, I was rather pleased recently when my cable picked up UW TV in California.
*Students were able to get "discount" computers and software from the UW bookstore, but it was cheaper to build your own.
*University of Washington Medical School branch DOES require all its students to have a computer
"Would you rather have a playstation addicted dork wearing a star wars t-shirt?"
The survey is wrong. It has incorrect data. Accross different campuses, the data doesn't reflect the truth. Forbes should be burnt (same with fu'in princeton review).
WWU would have a checkbox in every slot but four. Students aren't required to own a computer here because we have so many goddamn computer labs.
Our Wifi network covers nearly every relevant area of the campus.
I can mount my network shares directly using AFP.
I love my school's network.
Some spot-checking of the list based on schools I'm personally familiar with indicates that there's a huge error rate. In particular, nearly every school gives webspace to its students, but many of them are marked as not doing so. Many schools with wireless networks also say "no" under that column. Did these people just make shit up?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I go to The University of Virginia, and I checked out the list for this university, and it's terribly flawed.
Seriously, this whole "most connected campus" stuff is likely total bullshit. Sorry. I wouldn't give it any value at all.
I remember in 1992 when we had Unix terminals in Warren hall, I used to use my Atari ST to log in and read usenet and send email ... aaaah those were the days.
RPI has been heavily wired since the beginning of time, but I am sure the RIAA, Browser Hijacks, Windows vunerabilities and numerous other nuisances have taken its toll on ITS (if they are still called that).
Milwaukee School of Engineering, which is a decently well-known school even outside the US. Every full time student has a laptop. Part of their tuition pays for it. A large majority of classrooms have a network port for each seat (no wireless though). Though the school doesn't have much high-technology research, what they have does beat out any number of schools on this list.
It always bothers me when people compile lists like this and though they try to get a lot of entries, they don't always seem to do good research.
Radiation! I knew there had to be an explanation for the extreme unattractiveness of the native Troy population (note I did *not* say trojans).
I'm an animal lover -- they're delicious!
Why are we looking at these statistics. Hopefully we all know that there is no point of having hardware unless someone can use it. Why in the world would schools have 20 to 1,Computer to Student ratios? Do they need to check there Email every second? Peronsally I feel that this information should be based more about what the school can teach students about Computers, and how to use them instead of just having a lot of features (that everyone has anyway) and a lot of computers (no one uses most of the time). Truefully I feel schools (from my prespective) are doing a bad job at the simple task of teaching students about computers, and making them interested in computers. Employers are looking for employees that can use computers (in general) and be able to use any computer program. This is what we should be judging, the ablity of the school to enlighted students in ways to be able to solve ANY computing problem, a not just have a lot of hardware sitting around.
mnewberg.com
i've been to CMU and UPenn. Both fine schools, if I may say so, but UPenn (or any other school, I suspect) couldn't hold a candle to CMU in terms of computing facility. The ranking has UPenn at 9, but CMU no where to be seen. This is pure BULL SHIT. Sure, I've been out of college for close to 10 years, and many of the schools listed in the top ranking are mighty fine engineering schools, but CMU not being in the top ranking makes it highly suspect...
their uni's kick ass. technology wise.
- Is there a campuswide network? yes
- Is there a wireless network? yes
- Can students access e-mail away from school? yes
- Does the school provide Web pages? yes
- Does the school offer classes online? yes, taken through WebCT.
- Can students register online? yes
- Can students do other administrative functions online? yes, in the registration system
- Are students required to own a computer? no
- Can students get discounted computers? yes
- Does the school support handheld computers? yes
- Does the school stream audio or video of any courses? not yet, but will be happening
- Is network access available in dorm rooms? yes
- Is network access available in dormitory lounges? yes, via wireless
- Is a computer ethics policy in place for the school? yes
- Do students have access to Usenet newsgroups? yes
- Does tuition include a computer? no (but I wouldn't it included. Tuition is high enough)
- Does the school provide multimedia equipment? yes
- Does the school offer courses in emerging technologies? define "emerging technologies"
- Does the school stream its campus radio or TV stations? yes
(Links are off the top of my head. I'm too lazy to research the others.)Sadly, it seems like this whole thing was extremely poorly reseached. Slashdotters have done a better job just in this thread than the professionals paid to do this research.
Ditto for "does the school support handheld computers" -- what does this mean? They sell them in the university bookstore; if the survey means "does the university provide tech support for handheld computers," I have to wonder who expects minimum-wage university-helpdesk drones to be able to answer a hardware-specific question better than minimum-wage hardware-manufacturer-tech-support drones. At least the manufacturer's drones have access to training materials.
They also got "does the school stream audio or video of any courses" dead wrong; we have about half a building outfitted for broadcast-enabled classrooms, and I ended up skipping about half of the lectures for my programming language foundations class because it was easier to watch the webcast later.
It's called research, people. Try it sometime.
Dance like nobody's watching. Sing like you're in the shower. Fuck like you're being filmed.
I don't know where and how they get the data, but I am sure it contains inaccurate data. How can a notable magazine publish such a inaccurate and irresponsible survey?!