Background
The Third Dataquest-IDC survey scorecard on the best T-Schools in the country was compiled by Dataquest on the basis of a methodology and calculations vetted by research firm IDC. The IDC team was led by Shailendra Gupta and assisted by Shakyadev Mitra.

Research Objective
The aim of this survey was to determine the top Technology Schools (B.E, B Tech or similar level graduate technical courses) in the country and rank them on a list of parameters important for both students and recruiters.

Research Methodology
The Dataquest-IDC survey was done in two phases.

Phase 1-Desk Research
In this phase, an exhaustive desk research was done by the IDC team so as to identify the list of 370 Tech Schools and leading 40 IT companies who would be invited to be a part of the survey. We screened colleges established post 2003 and the ones which were not offering a BE, B Tech or similar level graduate technical courses.

Phase 2
The Tech Schools and the IT companies short-listed in Phase 1 were approached by the IDC team. For the Tech Schools both email responses and face-to-face interviews with the college representative (preferably the placement coordinator) were considered. HR heads of leading companies were contacted over e-mail to include the recruiter perception in the survey. The data was compiled on the basis of two-year objective data (academic years 2005-06 and 2006-07, except placement where only the 2005-06 data was considered) provided by institutes and perception scores of the recruiters.

The Ranking
Out of the 370 institutes, 124 have responded to our survey. After verifications, 7 institutes were rejected either due to unavailability of data or late response. Out of 117 institutes, 100 top institutes were ranked. The research team from IDC carried out the validation exercise.

Objective scores were obtained by evaluating the T Schools against the following parameters:

n Placements

n Infrastructure

n Academic Environment

n Industry Interface

The weights were distributed as: Placements (40%),

Infrastructure (10%), Intellectual Capital (20%) and Industry Interface (5%). The total weightage assigned to objective data was 75%.

These parameters were further categorized into sub parameters. This was done in the following manner.

n Percentage of students placed in all type of companies.

n Percentage of students placed in IT companies.

n Number of companies visiting campus in all type of companies per student.

n Number of IT companies visiting campus per student.

n Maximum Salary - Per Annum.

n Average salary of all type of companies - Per Annum.

n Average salary of IT companies - Per Annum.

n Computer to student ratio.

n Percentage of computers connected to the Internet.

n Percentage of students that can be accommodated in the Hostel.

n Internet access in hostel.

n Percentage of P IV/latest configuration computers.

n Internet access in computer Labs.

n Batch strength for PG Course in Engineering Disciplines.

n Availability of Digital/Network in campus library.

n Faculty/Student ratio.

n Percentage of permanent faculty.

n Percentage of permanent faculty with PhD.

n Number of patents obtained by the institute.

n Batch strength of PhD course in engineering discipline.

n Percentage of students passed with first division in BE/B Tech degree.

n Average number of research papers in 2005-06 and 2006-07.

n Number of MoUs signed by the Industry.

n Average number of assignments in 2005-06 and 2006-07 for organizations.

n Affiliation or linkages with international institutes/education bodies.

Perception Score: The perception survey of recruiters was conducted through another questionnaire. Recruiters were asked to rate importance of various aspects while deciding which Tech School to visit for campus recruitments on a 5-point scale. Recruiters were also welcome to add any parameter of their choice. They were given a list of institutes, which they had to rate on a 10-point scale. The overall weightage given to the recruiter's response was 25%. Infosys, Cadence Design System, Patni, HP, Hexaware and CSC were some of the companies that participated in the recruiter's part of the survey.

The composite score, which is the total of the objective data score and the recruiter's perception score, was used to arrive at the final ranking.

Analysis Methodology
All the absolute data provided by the institutions were normalized and converted to relative data to evaluate the relative distance among the institutes across different parameters. After normalization, the data was multiplied with respective weights of each parameter and then the total objective score out of 75 was calculated. Similarly, from the HR perception, the total score out of 25 was calculated only for those institutes that received some marks from the HR professionals, otherwise the HR portion was kept blank. These two scores were then added up and composite score was calculated out of 100. The whole data was then arranged in descending order and we finally got the Top 100 institutes across India.

Reasons for Change in Rank
Every year, we experience some reshuffling of ranks mainly because this survey is based on hard facts rather than perception only. As a result the total score of a particular institute gets modified and altered every year.

This year in the placement section only the 2005-06 figures are considered due to the fact that many a times we have found that in some of the colleges placement sessions of the current batch don't get over at the time they provide us the data. So to evaluate on a yardstick we have introduced such changes in the analysis this year. The shuffling also happens due to inclusion of few new colleges every year. In the Top 100 list of this year 61 colleges also featured last year, the others are new entrants.