Georgetown was the only university among the 25 winners of the Digital Edge 25 award, an honor from IDG Enterprise Media Brands CIO, Computerworld and the CIO Executive Council that recognizes enterprises that have transformed their institutions using digital innovation and technology.

As the only university to receive such recognition, Georgetown stands out among major companies such as American Express, United Airlines and Verizon Wireless, which also won the award.

Georgetown received the award for its Connected Campus initiative, which is working to leverage mobile, social, cloud and big data to facilitate a connected campus experience.

“Those selected by our judges stood apart for executing initiatives, that for example, drove much greater customer engagement, higher sales conversions and even new lines of business,” said Anne McCrory, vice president of marketing and content strategy for the IDG Enterprise events team.

In particular, the university was commended for its “mobile gamification” highlighted during New Student Orientation. During NSO, students used their mobile devices to check in to a number of locations as part of an on-campus scavenger hunt activity.

Projects were judged by a panel of executive peers on criteria such as sophistication, scale and business outcomes.

“The Digital Edge awards competition was extremely competitive, with many nominations demonstrating enormous business value from mobile, data analytics and other digital innovations,” McCrory said.

According to Vice President for Information Services and Chief Information Officer Lisa Davis, the university will continue to build upon the Connected Campus experience with measures including the potential elimination of the plastic GOCard.

“We are doing a lot of piloting new technologies to create that mobile GOCard, so you can check into buildings, you can get your meal plan, all those things that we do currently with our card. Students never lose their phone, but they do lose their GOCard,” Davis said.

However, Kaylah Denis (COL ’16) said she is worried that technology cannot be counted on for something as crucial as the GOCard.

“I think it’s unnecessary to replace something as simple as a GOCard with technology, especially when technology is so unreliable at times,” Denis said.

Davis added that the university is committed to bringing students and staff a fully digitally integrated campus experience.

“The use of these new technologies is very important for our students,” Davis said. “We are very proud and very excited about Georgetown winning this award and being recognized as a digital leader.”

Despite attempts to digitally enhance campus learning, Harshita Gaba (COL ’15) said that she is hesitant about the use of technology in classrooms, especially since many of her teachers do not use such tools to the fullest.

“I’m in a seminar that’s experimenting with it [technology in the classroom], it’s the American Studies English. I think we’re using it because we’re trying to, but I don’t think it really accentuates the experience at all,” Gaba said.

Gaba, additionally, said that she is disappointed in the Wi-Fi networks on campus.

“I use GuestNet all the time,” Gaba said. “I never got SaxaNet to work. I don’t know how the printing system works, it actually consistently does not work, I have to redownload the system every time.”