FAS Tech Gurus Slam Rankings

Harvard University did not make this year’s list of “America’s Most Connected Campuses,” released by the Princeton Review in October, but computer services officials at Harvard say this has nothing to do with the University’s technology or lack thereof. The problem was an inaccurate response to the survey.

“The basic fact is that most of the information is just plain wrong,” said Franklin Steen, director of computer services for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “We were very puzzled.”

The Princeton Review evaluated 357 schools on the sophistication of their computer technology, but Harvard was not on the list. The only Ivy League schools to break into the top 25 were Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania, ranked six and nine, respectively.

The survey consists of 20 questions, each assigned a different point value based on its relative importance to campus life. Some of the more heavily weighted questions included the ratio of computers to students, and the availability of streaming video and audio of courses online. The questions asked whether the school has a wireless network and whether students can register for classes online.

The survey incorrectly cited Harvard as not having audio or video stream of courses available to students online.

“That’s ridiculous,” Steen said. “We’ve had that for a number of years.”

Steen said that the evaluation was also wrong about Harvard’s overall number of public computers, provision of web pages, access to Usenet groups, availability of multimedia equipment and network access in dormitory lounges.

“This survey gives such a wrong impression that if a student came here and expected to find what this survey said, they’d be completely shocked,” Steen said.

Erik Olson, who was in charge of the data collection and analysis for the rankings, said he has to trust his contact in each school to fill out the information accurately and completely.

“We expect that they will do their jobs as we are doing our jobs,” Olson said. “If they’re not the person to be in contact with anymore, tell us who is.”

But David L. Evans, who is in charge of filling out surveys and questionnaires that come to the Harvard Admissions Office, said that he did not have the time to get all the correct information.

“Mr. Olson and others tend to think that you can get hold of one person and that person can give you a response just like that,” Evans said. “You can’t easily do that, but we try to do the best we can.”

Evans said that there is no central place to find all of the information asked for by the survey.

“Who knows how many computers there are here? The registrar wouldn’t know that,” Evans said. “You would almost have to go to the Tech Center, but I didn’t this time.”

Supervisor of Student and Residential Computing Kevin S. Davis ’98 said he thinks that many of the questions asked on the survey were out-of-date or irrelevant.

“The question of whether tuition includes a computer is sort of a loaded question,” Davis said. “Students have a lot of choice in what they bring and we support whatever they bring.”

Davis also saw the question of whether students have access to Usenet as obsolete. He remembers using those from his freshman year in 1994.

Associate Professor of Computer Science Norman Ramsey said he is satisfied with the technology offered by Harvard.

“As a professor, my life is somewhat different than that of a student, but I care most about wireless access on campus, which we were a little slow about but which is really pretty good now,” Ramsey said.

Sarah M. Faulkner ’06 who is a computer science teaching fellow, said she has noticed improvement in Harvard’s technology since her freshman year, but that there is still a long way to go to catch up with other schools’ technology.

“There are not that many courses online. A lot of the study cards and things like that could be done online,” Faulkner said. “We’re moving in that direction but we’re moving very slowly.”