The Center for Digital Education (CDE) announced that Virginia Western Community College placed second in the mid-sized colleges category of its 2015-16 Digital Community Colleges Survey. Now in its eleventh year, the Digital Community Colleges Survey analyzes how community colleges across the country use a range of technologies to improve services to students, faculty, staff and the community at large.
“This year’s survey indicates community colleges are making great strides in using data to improve decisions, providing professional development to assist faculty in the use of technology, and creating robust online and mobile environments for their students,” said Dr. Kecia Ray, executive director for the Center for Digital Education. “Congratulations to this year’s survey winners.”
Virginia Western has been selected for Top 3 honors on the Digital Community Colleges Survey for each of the past six years. The college, which earned a first place ranking in 2011, recently relaunched a completely redesigned web site at www.virginiawestern.edu.
Hostos Community College in the Bronx, NY, placed first in the mid-sized colleges category, which includes colleges with between 5,000-10,000 students. Award winners demonstrated innovative uses of technology, including online courses and mobile environments, mobile apps, secure platforms and wireless networks.
This year’s Digital Community Colleges Survey also revealed insights about community colleges’ technology priorities. Colleges surveyed indicated that mobility devices/app support and website redesign are their top priorities in the coming year, followed by cybersecurity tools and testing, network infrastructure modernization, server consolidation and virtualization, and disaster recovery/business continuity. The survey also revealed that, 59 percent of colleges now offer professional development courses on how to use mobile apps for instruction; while 93 percent offer professional development courses on how to integrate technology into curriculum and instructional practices.
All accredited U.S. community colleges are eligible to participate in the Digital Community Colleges Survey within three classifications based on enrollment size.
View the full list of colleges honored at: http://www.centerdigitaled.com/awards/digital-community-colleges/National-Survey-Recognizes-Top-10-Tech-Savvy-Community-Colleges.html.
