Intel: IU neglected wireless survey

When IU was declared an absentee from this year's "Most Unwired College Campuses" in a national survey conducted by Intel Corp., IU technology representatives claimed they would take the results with "a grain of salt."\nClaiming the survey methodology was partial to smaller campuses, IU and other big schools would almost always be absent from the list, said IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre in an interview. \nBut according to an Intel press release, data for the study was collected from various sources: the "America's Most Connected Campuses" ranking conducted by The Princeton Review; an online survey that schools completed between May 1 and Sept. 1 that was executed by the Center for Digital Education and Intel Corporation; and public documents, additional industry sources and individual university interviews.\n"We sent about three e-mails to each university (we) looked at," said researcher Bert Sperling, the head of the survey project. "IU responded to one of those messages -- it was just a couple of sentences."\nOther universities, Sperling said, sent back paragraphs in regards to his inquiries about each school's technology advancements on campus. Ball State University -- the No. 1 most "unwired campus" -- was one of these. \nBecause of the school's in-depth reply to his questionnaire, he was able to acquire a better window into the school's efforts for wireless technology, Sperling said. \nAccording to Intel, much of the judging is done on a weighed process to incorporate the size of each individual university. \n"We understand that it is harder to maintain a 100 percent wireless network for 1,000 than it is for 10," said Allison Wesley, public relations representative for the Intel Corp. \nStill, IU was surpassed by at least 50 other universities \nnationwide on the issue of wireless technology.\n"Our feeling is that IU is pretty accessible. I don't know what we could do to compete with the smaller campuses of only a few thousand students," MacIntyre said. "We have over 31,000 undergrads here." \nAccording to Sperling's findings, many schools large and small have taken the technology ball and hit a homerun, he said. \nMany schools are providing more unique services for their students than ever, and the top contenders on the Intel survey are no exception. No. 1-ranked Ball State and No. 15-ranked Purdue now give students the ability to view any sporting event occurring on campus through their wireless networks. Dartmouth College and Carnegie Mellon University have programs that allow students to virtually check the status of their laundry within the residence halls without having to leave their desks. Features such as these are all "icing on the cake," Sperling said. \nIn fact, Ball State has wireless coverage in every food court and every green space -- including their arboretum, for more extensive biological research to be done by students. \nAside from 100 percent connectivity, Ball State and other universities have implemented a service called Wi-Fi phone, in which a headset is plugged into a laptop and used as a cell phone. \n"Dartmouth has provided many Wi-Fi headsets to act as phones because the cell phone coverage is so terrible on campus," Sperling said. \nComparing applications of wireless services, Vice President of Information Technology Mark Bruhn said the University might not know the various creative ways in which its networks are being used. \n"We make it robust and reliable, and then people just do what they need to do," he said.\nAli Jafari, IU-Purdue University Indianapolis professor of technology and engineering, believes IU is one the best when it comes to network infrastructure and high speed data connections within and among the campuses. \n"I believe IU has too much of it for typical day-to-day learning and teaching needs," Jafari said. "However, I believe IU has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to offering software solutions to support learning, teaching, collaboration." \nJafari said OneStart and Oncourse, in particular, are in need of "a lot of updating" to offer more dynamic services.\nOne interesting use of IU's network, Bruhn said, is the project to pilot Macromedia Breeze -- software that will allow IU users to collaborate with other students and faculty by sharing multimedia files and chatting with each other, all while the wireless network allows them do this from almost anywhere on the core campus. \nThough IU has slipped from the rankings, the University still has much to be proud of, Sperling said. \n"It is difficult to become 100 percent wireless with a large campus," he said. "And how IU ranked last year says a lot about the University as an innovator among technology -- everyone else just took their ball and ran with it." \nChief Information Officer Michael McRobbie did not return phone calls by press time.