America’s top wired colleges
Posted by Jacque on September 6th, 2008
The Princeton Review surveys colleges to determine the “best” and once again partnered with PC Magazine, who provided the subset of tech questions, to determine the top 20 wired institutions.
They found “a vastly different landscape from what it was in 2006,” the last year surveyed. Only eight colleges carried over to the list in 2008 and several who were not in the previous lineup appeared.
In terms of academics, I was amazed that three of the top 20 schools offer no online lectures at all (including Pomona, Bowdoin College, and Loyola College in Maryland). A majority of schools are offering at least a few lectures online, but in some cases there are live webcasts or anytime downloads. Kansas State University (2) leads the way with 76 to 99 percent of its lectures available online—the only school in the top 20 to make that claim. Of course, “online lectures” is not really my idea of elearning, but perhaps the survey wasn’t designed to tap into the breadth and depth of online learning opportunities.
Thank goodness every single school in the top 20 says it offers training to its faculty to enhance what they offer students online.
Other measures of “wiredness” include student resources, infrastructure, and tech support.
I found the list itself very interesting, with results I wouldn’t have predicted. Take a look at the complete article to learn about the survey’s methodology.
