Ball State University's Department of Information Technology will be awarded for its innovative practices by a national information technology magazine.
CIO Magazine will present the 2006 CIO 100 award to Ball State University at the eighth annual CIO 100 Symposium and Awards Ceremony on Aug. 22. O'Neal Smitherman, vice president for information technology, will be accepting the award.
"This award recognizes Ball State University as an institution whose students, faculty and staff are engaged in innovative work using advanced technologies to benefit the community," Smitherman said. "Ball State continues to develop creative uses and approaches to implementing technologies and maintaining engagement with meeting the needs of the people of Indiana."
CIO magazine, a publication designed to provide up-to-date information abut the IT industry, identified several strong parts of Ball State's information technology programs, Smitherman said. Two in particular were the university's work on the Digital Middletown Project and the development of the Office of Wireless Research and Mapping.
"The Digital Middletown Project was a big study designed to establish a sort of infrastructure for schools and neighborhoods to have access to high-capacity broadband wireless," Anthony Romano, video specialist and media relations manager, said. "It tracked the people and the schools to see how they used this technology for both educational and entertainment purposes."
The Office of Wireless Research and Mapping is a program that works with clients to help them test new wireless technology and other digital content. It generates revenue by creating 3-D maps showing telecommunications companies different information they would need to reach their customers.
Romano said the maps could show the hills and valleys in areas and how they would affect signal strengths of wireless programs. The maps even recognize the effects particular seasons will have on the signals. For example, signal strengths change when sent through a tree full of thick leaves in the summer as compared to bare branches in the winter.
These maps are created using Global Information Systems technology, as well as a mapping software called Cellular Experts. Cellular Experts is a technology program that was created by HNIT-Baltic GeoInfoServices in Lithuania.
"Ball State is actually the only entity that is trained and certified to use this technology. HNIT-Baltic has also asked us to become a training center for the United States," Romano said.
Smitherman said Ball State's information technology programs help create a better information for the university as a whole.
"Ball State University's students, faculty and staff are engaged in some of the most advanced and innovative work in technology," Smitherman said. "Recognition of these efforts by entities like CIO magazine helps to communicate the importance of these accomplishments to people all around the country. The result of the recognition is Ball State graduates are regarded more highly and, hopefully, given more opportunities,"
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