About 10 years after digital media programs became available, Ball State University is one of the 10 percent of schools nationwide where students can take the courses.
The Center for Information and Communication Sciences conducted a survey of 400 schools nationwide, which began in September and ended in November, Ray Steele, CICS director and research leader, said. Funding came from the CICS and the International Digital Media & Arts Association, he said.
"The objective was to get just how broadly the new fields of digital media and arts have spread throughout academic communities," Steele said.
At Ball State, graduate students can earn degrees in Digital Storytelling where they focus on content instead of mechanics.
Researchers found about 30,000 students in the country are involved with a digital media or digital arts program, he said.
"This is only the edge of the actual results," he said. "I think the real number is twice that. The programs are sometimes tough to find. Some schools are not very responsive."
A group of 51 graduate assistants helped collect and organize data from the survey, Steele said.
They researched schools with a digital media program, the number of students in each program, types of programs and whether the programs were undergraduate or graduate courses, graduate assistant Annamalai Muthukaruppan said.
"We decided on objectives and a strategy," Muthukaruppan said. "Then we knew what to do and focused on doing research."
The graduate assistants contacted university administrators across the country via telephone, e-mail and fax, he said.
"We pretty much got a lot of information," he said. "Many responded, but some didn't."
The only state that did not have a university or college with a digital media or digital arts program was Wyoming, Steele said.
"We got a pretty good response in all 50 states," he said. "Wyoming may have a school with a program. We just may not have found it."
Researchers also wanted to find what careers students pursue after graduating from a digital program, but they did not learn much because the field is relatively new and many universities do not track careers of graduates, Steele said.
"It's got a lot of people in the what-do-we-do-next zone," he said. "It certainly is new for art, a new and uncharted sea. It takes a form that combines things differently than they've been doing before."
Digital media and arts includes media, entertainment, engineering and other fields, Steele said.
"It is as broad of a range as GPS and geography on one side and information and news on the other," he said. "It is a field that has possibilities. We wanted to get a handle on what kind of opportunities there are."
Digital media was established as an academic field in the 1990s and Ball State has been researching it since it developed and will continue to, Steele said.
"We've been a leader in the game since it really began," he said.
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