In the spirit of the Winter Olympics, the editors at educational resource site CollegeSurfing.com put on their judge hats to offer accolades to the top social media innovators among the nation’s colleges and universities.

The University of Texas at Dallas finished at No. 29 in the site’s Web 2.0 Olympics roundup, qualifying for the bronze medal.

UT Dallas was rated highly for not only maintaining official Twitter feeds and Facebook pages, but also employing Web 2.0-savvy faculty members. Examples included Dr. Monica Rankin, professor of history, and Dr. Dave Parry, assistant professor of emerging media and communication.

Rankin experiments with Twitter in the classroom, and Parry packs his Twitter feed with intelligent and humorous social commentary.

UT Dallas is in good company, as other schools in the top 50 list include Johns Hopkins University and Yale University.

“In the fast-paced world of social media, where a tweet can scoop even The New York Times, colleges and universities are learning that they need to have a power Web 2.0 combination that gets users interested, and, more importantly, involved,” wrote Dawn Papandrea, managing editor of CollegeSurfing.com, in presenting the awards.