Topics: College of Communication Information and Media, Emerging Media

February 12, 2007

Ball State is firmly entrenched among 10 percent of universities and colleges now offering digital media education courses — a newly created field established in the 1990s.

The survey of 400 post-secondary educational organizations in the United States discovered that the academic world of digital media and arts is quickly gaining mainstream acceptance, said Ray Steele, director of Ball State's Center for Information and Communication Sciences (CICS).

"The academic world of digital media and arts is a relatively new phenomenon," said Steele, who coordinated the study. "This area is often complicated by convoluted relationships — by traditional academic standards — as well as the unusual locations for new programs addressing digital media related topics and issues."

Ball State has been deeply involved in digital education and research for more than a decade. Over the last six years, Ball State educators have drawn on $40 million in grants from Lilly Endowment Inc., the latest grant received in late 2005, to enhance innovative, immersive, educational experiences for students in digital technology. The grants are funding other educational and research initiatives that may have the potential to produce economic opportunities

Before the Lilly grants, Ball State had already taken steps toward creating a new educational model that uses technology to facilitate collaborative projects with partners across campus, at other institutions and across the world, including digital industry professionals.

The university's push to create this new educational model received a substantial boost in 2001 with a $20 million gift from the Endowment, dubbed the iCommunication initiative, which built on the university's existing strengths in applied research and allowed faculty and students to spawn interdisciplinary projects in digital media design, digital content development and the testing of digital communications technology.

"The Digital Exchange," funded by the most recent grant from the endowment, is allowing the university to innovatively and continuously exchange information through digital technology, yielding educational and possible commercial benefits, said David Ferguson, executive director of Ball State's Center for Media Design (CMD).

The CMD is a research and development facility focused on the creation, testing, and practical application of digital technologies for business, classroom, home, and community.

"Within this fast-changing realm, we believe Indiana may have exciting opportunities to realize a new type of economic potential — one for which Ball State is already preparing students to take full advantage," he said.

Steele said his study found that Ball State has the ability to transform its culture to meet the needs of today's changing economic and educational format.

"Historically, it has always been a challenge for interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary programs to flourish in traditional, departmentalized institutions," Steele said. "Creative and edgy topical areas have often suffered from a lack of stable support and mainstream collegial acceptability for faculty who dare push beyond the comfortable and the normal."

The results of the study were compiled on a state-by-state basis in "Digital Media Programs in the USA," a report Steele submitted to the International Digital and Media Arts Association (IDMAA).

Steele is the organization's executive director and a founding board member. The 50-state survey was completed by a group of 51 CICS graduate students.   

"The real meaning of our results is to simply help us understand that this is no small phenomenon in academics," Steele said. "We need to move beyond those preliminary numbers to a more complete and comprehensive survey which will help us as we move the digital media and arts programs forward."

By Marc Ransford, Senior Communications Strategist