2000 Digital State Survey For a complete listing of the 2000 Digital State Survey results, visit the Web site www.centerdigitalgov.com.. Related articles KU official receives national Internet technology award Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Contact: Ranjit Arab, University Relations, (785) 864-8855

KU helps state to No.1 ranking in higher ed technology

LAWRENCE - Cutting-edge Internet services at the University of Kansas were a major contributor to the state's No. 1 ranking for higher education technology in a recent poll by Government Technology magazine.

The state of Kansas finished in a two-way tie with South Dakota atop the higher education rankings in the 2000 Digital State Survey in Government Technology magazine. Overall, the Kansas state government finished second for information technology.

The state of Washington finished first in the overall rankings for the annual survey, which is on newsstands now.

Don Heiman, chief information officer for the executive branch of Kansas government, said infrastructure, student online services and cutting-edge human resources applications at KU contributed to the state's No. 1 higher education ranking. The survey mentioned several services at KU, including the ability to receive grades through e-mail, distance-learning and online courses, and a Web site that provided 1,000 course syllabus links and 2,000 class announcements.

The survey also highlighted efforts at the KU Medical Center to develop a data warehouse designed to integrate information about Kansas health professionals, as well as a genetic sequence database shared by researchers at KU and Kansas State University.

"The survey reaffirms KU's commitment to being a leader in information technology for the state of Kansas, the greater Kansas City area and the region," said KU Chancellor Robert E. Hemenway.

KU plays a major role in networks among Kansas Board of Regents institutions and throughout the Midwest. Programs such as the Great Plains Network and the Kansas Research and Education Network (KREN) are operated from the KU campus.

The Great Plains Network provides a high-speed network that connects researchers from North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. KREN provides telecommunications services to higher education institutions in the state, including connections to Internet2. For the higher education survey, the six Kansas regents schools filled out surveys about their online programs, infrastructure and Web sites. They also had to provide documentation of their answers.

Marilu Goodyear, vice chancellor for information services at KU, then worked with each school to help the state develop one comprehensive survey for the six regents institutions.

"We've made major improvements in our information technology infrastructure in the last five years, and this is simply verification that all our hard work is paying off," Goodyear said.

Heiman, who accepted the awards on behalf of the state at a ceremony last week in Baltimore, said he would present the higher education award to the Board of Regents during a meeting later this month. Heiman said the higher education award would not have been possible without Goodyear's efforts.

"I am very grateful to her for the help she has given me in working with the regents institutions," Heiman said.

Government Technology magazine, in conjunction with the Center for Digital Government, the Progress and Freedom Foundation and Compaq Computer Corporation sponsored the 2000 Digital State Survey.