Research

1998 Alumni Information Technology Survey

May 18, 1998

written by Marketing Communications
sponsored by Student Information Technology Initiative
Division of Information Technology
University of Wisconsin - Madison

Background

• Survey recent Alumni in order to determine levels of satisfaction with campus information technology services.
• Determine the extent to which those services prepared them for technology in the workplace.
• Determine Alumni satisfaction with this level of preparation for technology in the workplace.
• Determine potential areas of improvement in student technology offerings.
• Provide some trend comparisons with a similar, 1997 Alumni survey.

Methodology

The 1998 Alumni Information Technology Survey was mailed to 1000 randomly selected UW-Madison Alumni beginning March 13, 1998, accompanied with a pre-paid return envelope. Surveys were sent to Alumni who graduated between May, 1996 and December, 1997. Returns were collected until May 13, 1998. One post-card follow-up was sent to obtain a final response of 32 percent (323 completed surveys). This is somewhat surprising considering the 1997 survey's response of 41%, and with no substantial differences in methodology. An approximation of the survey margin of error is +/- 5.4 percent.

DoIT worked with Wisconsin Survey Research Lab (WSRL) for population sampling. WSRL also administered the survey and processed the returns. Survey design, data analysis, and report writing was done by Marketing Communications.

An Overview: Survey Highlights

Alumni were asked to respond to a variety of questions containing a six point scale (see Questions 4, 7, 9, 10, & 17 below). Lower values indicated greater preference, satisfaction, importance, and so on, depending on the exact content of the question. Alumni were consistently positive in their responses to these attitude questions. There was particularly strong agreement among respondents regarding the quality of, and their satisfaction with UW-Madison information technology services.

Ninety-one percent of Alumni respondents said they were employed, and of these, more than three-quarters were employed in a position directly related to their area of study while at UW-Madison. While overall frequency of student computer use was very high (85% used a computer several times a week or more while attending UW-Madison), Alumni tended to use computers even more frequently at their positions than they did while in school.

In addition, the importance of specific computer skills in the workplace continues to grow, according to employed Alumni. The importance ratings of five software skills increased rather substantially from 1997 to 1998, with word processing still rated as the most important skill relative to one's job. When asked how important the computing skills they obtained from UW-Madison were to their current position, 40% rated them "very important," while 31% rated them "important."

When asked what computer skills learned at UW-Madison were most useful to them, about half of Alumni mentioned Internet skills. Internet and HTML skills were also the most common response when asked in what areas UW-Madison could have better prepared them. Skills in programming and statistics were also mentioned as a most useful skill and an area in which UW-Madison could have better prepared Alumni. General computing skills and offering more training classes were mentioned as additional areas UW-Madison could have performed better in. This might be a case of hindsight being 20/20; many Alumni may wish they had taken more computer training. Data from DoIT's 1998 Student Survey suggests that student do not take computer training because they are too busy or they simply do not know such training exists.

The most frequently used services by Alumni while attending UW-Madison were Internet services (93%) and campus computer labs (83%). While 76% were aware of computer training courses offered by UW-Madison, only 15% said they had used them. Other data confirm that computer training provided by the University accounts for around 15% of Alumni computer skills. About half continue to be largely self-taught while another 25% learned from friends or peers.

Frequency Runs

The results of this year's Alumni survey are compared to last year's Alumni survey results where this is possible.¹

The number of respondents upon which percentages are calculated can change from question to question. Some respondents simply did not answer a question, others were instructed to skip a question, etc. Because of this, the number of respondents is included in each Table (n=323, for example).

Respondents were occasionally instructed to provide more than one response option where appropriate. In these cases column percentages will usually sum to more than 100. These questions can be identified by the "check all that apply" instructions.

1. While attending UW-Madison, how often did you use a computer?

Table 1

	% (n=322)
Frequently (several times a week or more)	84.8%
Sometimes (a few times a month)	12.4%
Seldom(a few times a year)	1.2%
Never	1.6%

2. Which of the following UW-Madison services were you aware of and which did you use? [CHECK ALL THAT APPLY]

Nearly all Alumni were aware of UW-Madison's Internet services, computer labs and help desk. All services had generally high levels of awareness. Relatively few Alumni had used computer sales, training, or I & R.

Figure 1 Awareness and Use of UW-Madison Srevices

3. Indicate your satisfaction with each of these UW-Madison services using the scale below. (Larger values indicate greater importance; 1=very dissatisfied, 6=very satisfied)

Ratings remained positive for UW-Madison services, with slight improvements in average ratings for many of the services. Without raw data from 1997 Alumni survey, however, estimates of statistical significance are difficult.

Figure 2 Average Satisfaction Rating - 1997, 1998

4. Overall, how satisfied were you with UW-Madison information technology services?

5. If you were dissatisfied, please explain why.

There were less than 20 responses to this question. Only one area was mentioned more than three times, dealing with lines being too long or the need for more computers in computer labs.

6. Please tell us the one area in which UW-Madison information technology services could most be improved.

7. Overall, how would you rate your computer skills upon graduation from UW-Madison?

The data provided by this Question and Question 4 make it apparent that graduates are generally pleased with both the information technology services UW-Madison provides and their computer skills upon graduation.

8. How much have each of the following sources helped you acquire your computer skills while at UW-Madison? Assign a greater percentage to those sources from which you learned the most and smaller percentages to those from which you learned the least.

In 1998 the survey differentiated between training classes offered by the UW and training classes not offered by the UW, but with little effect. It is clear that nearly all the computer training provided by the University accounts for around only 15% of Alumni computer skills. About half continue to be largely self-taught while another 25% learned from friends or peers.

Figure 3 Source of Computer Skills - 1997

Figure 4 Source of Computing Skills - 1998

9. Overall, how would you rate the quality of UW-Madison information technology services?

Table 6

	% (n=316)
Very well	20.4%
Well	43.8%
Somewhat well	30.9%
Somewhat poorly	2.7%
Poorly	1.3%
Very Poorly	1.3%

There was some agreement that Internet and word processing skills were the most useful to Alumni. A sizable percentage of Alumni indicated that more specialized skills such as programming languages, statistics and databases were the most useful.

Table 7

	% (n=258)
Internet	49.2%
Word processing	43.0%
Programming/statistics	21.3%
Databases	13.2%
Operating systems	6.6%

Far fewer respondents answered this open-ended question than Question 11 and many individuals (22.6%) gave responses that were varied and did not fall into a coded category. About 19% of valid responses indicated that UW-Madison could have better prepared Alumni in the Internet and HTML. There also seems to be a need for more general computing skills and training, according to Alumni. Programming and statistics seems to more important to Alumni than one might expect given its place in this and the previous table.

Table 8

	% (n=124)
Internet/HTML	18.5%
General/basic computer skills	14.5%
Programming/statistics	9.7%
More classes/training	7.3%
None, could have done it myself	6.5%

Table 9

	% (n=287)
Yes	90.6%

Referring to Table 1, these data suggest that while computer use is frequent while Alumni are in school, it is likely to increase once they are employed. Combined with the information provided in Table 11, it is likely that these students will also find employment in their chosen field.

Table 10

	% (n=316)
Frequently (several times a week or more)	91.6%
Sometimes (a few times a month)	3.9%
Seldom(a few times a year)	0.7%
Never	3.9%

Table 11

	% (n=287)
Yes	76.7%

All of the following skills increased in importance relative to their current positions. Email and Internet tools in particular saw large jumps in importance ratings (and probably statistically significant ones at that). Word processing continues to be judged most important of the listed software skills. "Other" skills are probably software or other computer skills highly specialized or specific to individual positions.

17. Overall, how important are the computing skills you obtained while at UW-Madison to your current position?

Table 12

	% (n=316)
Very important	39.7%
Important	30.5%
Somewhat important	19.4%
Somewhat unimportant	4.0%
Unimportant	3.3%
Very unimportant	3.3%

Table 13

	% (n=316)
Bachelor's	62.2%
Master's	22.5%
Ph.D.	8.8%
Other	6.6%

The information provided by Table 13 has implications for the design and implementation of future. Between the 1998 and 1997 surveys, 1996 graduates were queried twice. It is also readily apparent that December graduates are either slow to make it into the Alumni Records Office's database, or are systematically not responding to the survey for some reason. For the 1998 survey, only a small number of December 1997 graduates replied. The same holds for December 1996 graduates within the 1997 survey. These facts suggest that conducting the Alumni survey every two years would be the most efficient and accurate collection of these data.

Table 14

Graduation date	1997 survey % (n=420)	1998 survey % (n=316)
1996 May August December	34% 6% 1%	33.2% 9.2% 16.1%
1997 May August December	- - -	32.3% 7.9% 1.3%

Table 15

	% (n=316)
Agricultural and Life Science	11.9%
Business	9.7%
Education	14.7%
Engineering	10.0%
Family Resources and Consumer Science/Human Ecology	3.1%
Institute for Environmental Studies/Natural Resources	2.5%
Law	2.8%
Letters and Science	41.7%
Medical	2.2%
Nursing	2.5%
Pharmacy	2.5%
Veterinary Medicine	2.8%

While Alumni who attended UW-Madison for more than 6 years were somewhat less satisfied than their peers, this effect was not significant.

Table 16

	% (n=316)
Less than 4 years	24.5%
4 - 5 years	51.1%
5 - 6 years	11.8%
More than 6 years	12.7%

Table 17

	% (n=287)
Yes	18.0%