Magazine names DePaul's Information Services Division to its Top 100
June 2007
Our Information Services (IS) division's recent recognition by CIO magazine as one of the nation's most innovative organizations is just the latest external validation that DePaul is on the forefront of the technology revolution. The cutting-edge approach acclaimed by this prominent industry publication for chief information and technology officers held up DePaul as an exemplar of the best in the business. It is well-deserved applause because DePaul settles for no less than the very best for our students, staff and faculty.
IS Vice President Vince Kellen and the division's 120 employees worked intensely and collaboratively with Enrollment Management & Marketing and the college offices to create a series of online tools to help students better navigate their academic careers.
From an interactive degree progress report that allows students and their advisors to see a student's progress toward meeting degree requirements instantly, to a system that enables students in the First Year Program to make appointments with their advisors to update their learning plans and map their path to graduation, these new technology tools are transforming the way DePaul does business.
Complementary efforts made DePaul the first private university in Illinois to join the Course Applicability System, which enables current students and prospective transfer students from throughout Illinois to run "what if" projections by applying their earned credits to different degree scenarios. Meanwhile, a new online “smart application” available to most students tailors questions pertinent to their individual academic interests while allowing convenient online payment of the application fee. The result is a quicker admission decision for students and enhanced productivity for staff.
CIO magazine will profile all the winners in its Aug. 15 issue. The kind of innovation for which CIO has praised DePaul reinforces distinctions of excellence across the university, but perhaps best echoes honors our School of Computer Science, Telecommunications and Information Systems (CTI) has been receiving for years.
CTI has been named a National Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance by the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after a thorough evaluation of its curriculum. Sony Pictures Imageworks selected DePaul as one of its first collaboration partners in a nationwide program to promote new courses in graphics, animation and visual effects. The positive impact on students can be seen in feats such as the DePaul team that qualified for the world finals and took second place among U.S. universities (tying with Princeton and Cal Tech) in the 2006 International Collegiate Programming Contest, which is sponsored by tech industry leaders Association for Computing Machinery and IBM.
I am proud that DePaul is being recognized by respected organizations outside the university as a role model in higher education for both teaching and applying leading-edge information technology.
