Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/59966
lege will itself become a "Model Campus," is now in progress. TransLux will provide the real-time electronic displays, aiming tomake theman integral part of the school's administrative function and brand identity.Once the project is complete, administrators fromother schools can visit Bentley to see how the signs work on a campus. For those who cannot visit, TransLux and the stu- dents worked with a Boston-based design firm,Neoscape, to develop a CD-ROMthat will serve as amarket- ing tool to show TheModel Campus in a virtual environment. "We want to enhance signage at our campus entrance, in our student centers, and in our public areas to make our school more visible," says Sandra King, vice president of mar- keting, communications, and public affairs. The boards, she adds, will dis- play information from external sources such as Bloomberg News and CNN, as well as internal information on speakers, events, and school pro- motions. "Such signage is less inter- active than theWeb," says King, "but will afford us the opportunity to reach people who are not sitting in front of their computers." WebSurveyor Helps Students Learn Market Research TOOLS OF THE TRADE Customer attitudes and behaviors change quickly in today's market- place, which makes online market re- search an increasingly important tool for companies. Online surveys are easier to conduct than printed or face-to-face surveys and can be com- pleted and tabulated in a matter of hours, not weeks. With more companies turning to online market research, it's also im- portant that business students know the ins and outs of conducting and interpreting surveys effectively. As a result,WebSurveyor, a provider of online survey software and hosting services based inHerndon, Virginia, has invited business school programs to apply to its 2005 academic grant program. Through the grant pro- gram, schools receive a free, two-year license to useWebSurveyor to teach business students the art of online market research. To be eligible, schools must have a faculty member who will conduct surveys and use WebSurveyor in the classroom. So far, 68 schools are taking part in the program. Although now used primarily in the corporate sector, the software also can be used as a teach- ing tool designed to help students learn about the surveying process and increase response rates over and above what traditionally mailed print surveys produce. Angela Stanton, assistant professor of marketing at Radford University in Radford, Virginia, has been using WebSurveyor in her classes for the last five years.Her students have cre- ated surveys measuring customer sat- isfaction, behavior, and product usage for a number of organizations and even for the university itself. Using the survey software helps students learn all the methodologies for col- lecting data online, from selecting a target sample to knowing the right questions to ask, she says. "Companies are really using online market surveying, so students should Higher Ed Increases Wireless Reach The EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) recently released its survey, "Information Technology Network- ing in Higher Education: Campus Commodity and Competitive Dif- ferentiator." Written by Judith Pi- rani, Gail Salaway, Richard Katz, and John Voloudakis, the study found college and university cam- puses have gone beyond equipping themselves with the basic techno- logical requirements. They are now looking at technology as a way to be armed with that knowledge," says Stanton. "Even students who are not going into marketing would be lack- ing something in their skill sets if they were not exposed to this kind of mar- ket research." The license allows unlimited users to conduct an unlimited number of customized surveys during the grant period. To guide survey novices, the software comes loaded with survey templates and sample questions geared to a variety of purposes. In ad- dition, it includes features such as conditional branching, data piping, response randomization, and quota controls. Schools host the software on their own servers, so students and faculty can access the software and conduct surveys through intranet en- vironments. After the two-year grant period, schools can renew their licenses to WebSurveyor free of charge. For in- formation about applying to the WebSurveyor Academic Grant pro- gram for a free two-year license, visit www.websurveyor.com/grant.asp. BizEd MAY/JUNE 2005 53