IU boasts most 'wired' campus

IU is wired, and not because of the plethora of gourmet coffee shops on campus. \nOn Dec. 20, PC Magazine released its list of the top 20 wired campuses in the country, with IU ranking third overall and the most-wired among public universities in the country.\nThe results were based on a survey compiled by the magazine and distributed by the Princeton Review, said Erik Rhey, features editor at PC Magazine. The survey contained 18 questions divided into three categories: student resources, academics and infrastructure. Out of 361 colleges that were given the survey, 240 universities responded, including two other Indiana schools -- Purdue University and Valparaiso University. No other university in Indiana made the top 20.\n"IU has the best combination of security, resources, online storage and tech support," Rhey said. "IU offers a good amount of resources given that it serves a very large population."\nRhey said IU earned major points for Oncourse, the portal program through which students and faculty can interact with each other by posting grades, announcing assignments and sending messages to each other. \nTechnology courses offered at IU were another point-gainer for the University. According to the PC Magazine survey, IU offers six unique tech courses: game development, Web design, 3-D animation, robotics, hacking and PC security. IU offers the most tech courses in the state, two more than Purdue. \nThe PC Magazine article also references the nation's fastest university-owned supercomputer, Big Red. Brad Wheeler, IU chief information officer and dean of information technology, said Big Red is the essential tool for many researchers.\n"It provides high-performance computing for life sciences, physics and many forms of research," Wheeler said in an e-mail interview. "We turned on Big Red in August and already our researchers are saturating its capabilities."\nWheeler also wants to clarify that Big Red is no longer the fastest university-owned supercomputer, although it was when the article was published.\n"Since then, others have laid claim to this fast-moving target," he said.\nWheeler said he is happy with the ranking and believes IU's IT will only get better. He's most proud of IU's model of leveraging IT across research, teaching, administration and personal use.\n"This lets us provide more value for the dollar than other fragmented approaches," he said.