Research

1998 Faculty/Staff Computing Survey

August 12, 1998

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

Background

The 1998 Faculty/Staff Computing Survey was designed to provide DoIT guidance on how well it is doing and how it might better serve faculty and staff information technology needs. Specifically, the objectives of the survey were to:

• Continue to monitor faculty/staff awareness and use of computing services
  
• Determine perceived importance of and satisfaction level with DoIT services
  
• Improve the study design and methodology.
  
• Obtain marketing information to forecast sales activity for the Tech Store.
  
• Determine trends in training and learning technology.

Methodology

The 1998 Faculty/Staff Computing Survey was mailed to 1000 randomly selected UW-Madison Faculty and Staff beginning April 3, 1998, accompanied with a postage-paid return envelope. Returns were collected until June 8, 1998. Three mailings were sent to obtain a final response of 50 percent (500 completed surveys). The distribution of respondents’ classification (faculty or staff) was compared with the UW’s actual distribution of classification. A weight which took into account the slight disparity between the two distributions was computed and applied to the data. An approximation of the survey margin of error is +/- 4.4 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 conducted by Marketing Communications.

An Overview: Survey Highlights

Computer Ownership and Use

Overall, Faculty and Staff personal computer ownership grew slightly, from 75% in 1997 to 77% this year. However, there was a troubling drop in reported computer ownership by Faculty. While the vast majority of respondents have desktop computers at home, 24% own laptops. Windows 95--which saw large increases in use over 1997--is the dominant OS in computers Faculty and Staff use at home and at work (see Question 6).

Computer use by Faculty and Staff at the UW has plateaued at 95%. There are no differences between Faculty and Staff in either the percentage using computers or amount of time spent using a computer. About a quarter of Faculty and Staff use their computers more than 40 hours per week; about half use their computer more than 30 hours per week.

Internet Resources and Use

Virtually all (96%) respondents report using the Internet in some capacity. Of these, many use the Internet for email and web browsing, and about half access online databases and download files. When connecting to Internet at home or locations away from the UW, 63% use the UW dial pool. The next most popular mode for Internet connection is a commercial Internet Service Provider. Sixteen percent of respondent say they use an ISP, a figure that continues to increase every time it is measured. Only 13% never connect to the Internet while away from the UW. Regarding connections to the Internet on campus, the most popular method is a direct network connection (65%). Fifteen percent of campus office connections are via dial-in. The average time per week spent dialed-in to the WiscWorld modem pool increased by about an hour over 1997; however, much of the net increase is attributed to a small group of users.

Purchasing

Two product purchase questions indicate the size of DoIT’s potential market (see Questions 13 and 14). About 18% of Faculty and Staff plan to purchase a desktop computer within the next 6 months using University funds. This translates into 2,275 individuals purchasing one or more desktop computers for the University. A similar amount of Faculty and Staff plan on purchasing desktop computers for personal use in the next 6 months. Faculty are more likely than staff to plan to make University purchases of computer hardware and software. For actual monetary amounts, Faculty and Staff say they plan making nearly $7 million in personal purchases within the next 6 months.

DoIT Services: Awareness, Use, Quality and Importance

While awareness of most services increased over 1997, particularly significant increases occurred in four (Product Sales, Help Desk {walk-in}, the New Media Centers and TechNews). Declines in awareness only occurred for two services (LTDE and Product/Service literature). The use of one DoIT service increased significantly over last year (Product Sales) and only one (Product/Services literature) declined significantly. There was little change in quality ratings for individual DoIT services since 1997. Overall quality was rated a "4" on a 5-point scale where 1=very dissatisfied and 5=very satisfied. Overall availability of UW computing resources was rated a "3.8" on a 5-point scale where 1=very poor and 5=very good.

Training and LTDE

Although overall desire for additional training has experienced a slight downward trend over the past three years, over 51% still express an interest in training. Internet tools, presentation graphics and databases lead the list of specific topics which Faculty and Staff want training in.

Over half of Faculty want training in how to incorporate technology into their training. When asked how they would like to receive this training, a clear preference emerged for "workshops, small groups, seminars." The greatest increase in planned use of technology in the classroom is for computer enhanced presentation; 27% of Faculty presently use it, and 37% plan to use it in the future.

Over 9% of Faculty and Staff said their decision to work at the UW was influenced by campus computing resources. This was more true to Faculty than Staff.

Notes on Data Analysis

The number of respondents upon which percentages are calculated can change from question to question. Some respondents simply skip a question, others are instructed to skip a question, etc. Because of this, the number of respondents is included in each Table (n=323, for example) in the Frequency Runs section.

Respondents were often encouraged to respond to all relevant response options. In these cases column percentages will usually sum to more than 100. In the Frequency Runs section, these questions can be identified by the instructions "check all that apply."

In general, care should always be taken in interpreting data, keeping in mind the context and wording of the question, what response options--if any-- respondents were asked to choose, etc. Where a specific response scale was used (such as a Likert scale, ranking, etc.) this information is highlighted in or at the end of the question.

Frequency Runs

This section presents the frequency counts in percentages for the each question on the survey.

1. Do you have a computer at home?

While overall computer ownership climbed slightly over the last year, there was a somewhat disturbing and statistically significant drop in computer ownership among Faculty. While it is possible that there is a methodological explanation for the drop, this is unlikely. The data for both surveys have been weighted to reflect the actual distribution of Faculty and Staff on campus, and there were no real differences in data collection methods. Computer ownership among Faculty, as measured just a few months ago by the 1998 Sales and Software Survey,was 92.9% which is also somewhat higher than the 88.4% reported in this table.

2. How many of each kind of computer do you have at home? How old are they?

3. Do you use a computer at the UW?

4. How many of each kind of computer do you use at the UW? How old are they?

5. Which of the following, if any, do you use while working for UW-Madison?

6. Which operating platform environments do you use on the computer(s) you own and/or those you use at the UW? [check all that apply]

The most notable figures in this table are the differences between home and work use of Unix and Windows NT operating systems. Windows 95 continues to retain a strong presence in owned and UW operating systems. There was also a substantial increase in both over last year, with the percentage of owned Win95 machines jumping from 35% last year and the percentage of UW Win95 machines jumping from 44% last year.

7. Do you use the Internet for browsing, email, etc. while doing work at home or at UW-Madison?

8. What do you use the Internet for? [check all that apply]

9. When you are at home or locations away from the UW, how do you connect to the Internet?

Only Internet users answered this question. There was some substantial non-response to this question, with about 10% of qualified respondents failing to answer. An additional 10% of qualified respondents did not know how they are connected to the Internet at home. Two interesting figures remain: almost 16% indicated using an ISP, an amount that has been increasing almost every time we measure it; and about 13% of respondents do not connect to the Internet while away from the UW.

The second table below shows similar data from a question asked in 1997. However, since the question was asked differently, the data are not directly comparable. This year we distinguished between on-campus and off-campus Internet connections; there is no such distinction with the 1997 data. Caution should be taken when interpreting any trends from 1997 to 1998.

10. How are the computers you use at the UW connected to the campus network? [check all that apply]

This table presents the distribution of on-campus Internet connections Faculty and Staff use. Many individuals use a direct network connection, yet a substantial percentage (22.6%) do not know how they are connected to the network while on campus. This information, in conjunction with that from Question 9 above, indicates that inquiring about respondent Internet connections may be too technical for some of them to accurately answer.

11. On average, how much time do you spend per week connected to the WiscWorld modem dial-in pool? Please estimate your time per week for both this year and next.

Faculty and Staff spent an average 5.4 hours per week connected to the WiscWorld modem pool. 9.3% spent more than 15 hours per week on the modem pool. There were no differences between Faculty and Staff in use. This compares with an average 4.3 hours per week in 1997 where 5% spent more than 15 hours per week on the modem pool.

While Internet and WiscWorld dial-in use has risen slightly since last year, a close look at the numbers reveals that much of the increase is due to a small group of users. Mathematical averages are sensitive to extreme values and a small percentage of people using the Internet for relatively extreme lengths of time can inflate average Internet use. Indeed, when those individuals using the modem pool 15 hours or more are taken into account (or held constant) and the averages recomputed, average Internet use for both 1997 and 1998 remained at 3.3 hours per week. These extreme users are somewhat more likely to have a higher speed Internet connection, both at home and work, but these trends are not statistically significant. The only behavior on which these extreme users significantly differed from more moderate users was on computer use; extreme users tended to spend more time using their computers during spring semester.

Respondents estimated they would spend an average 6.5 hours per week connected to the WiscWorld modem pool next year. There were no differences between Faculty and Staff estimates of use. Last year, respondents estimated they would use the WiscWorld modem pool about 5.7 hours per week in 1998.

12. On average, about how many hours per week have you used a computer during this semester?

Close to half of Faculty and Staff (45.5%) use a computer 31 or more hours per week.

13. How many of the following items do you plan to purchase during the next 6 months? [check all that apply]

Judging from this table, software and desktop computers are the most likely purchases for both work and personal use in the next 6 months. A substantial number of respondents (37.3%) do not intend to make any purchases in the next 6 months.

Further analysis finds that 16% plan only one university or personal purchase in the next 6 months; 13% planned two purchases, and 30% planned 3 or more purchases. There were differences between Faculty and Staff in their responses too. Faculty planned to make more UW purchases than staff during the next 6 months. This effect was statistically significant for each category.

From this data, one can also obtain a rough projection of Faculty and Staff purchasing power in the next 6 months. For instance, if 17.5% of roughly 13,000 Faculty and Staff plan to purchase a UW desktop computer, this totals about 2,300 individuals purchasing one or more desktop computers in the next six months. Of course these figures do not reflect actual behavior, but they do indicate the size of DoIT’s potential market.

14. About how much do you plan to spend on computing hardware and software during the next 6 months?

There is a slight trend in the table below that Faculty and Staff intend to spend more on personal than UW purchases in the next 6 months. This trend is modified by acknowledging the number of respondents planning to make high end purchases ($4,000 or more) for the University. Similar to the differences noted in the previous question, Faculty were more likely than Staff to spend more money on University purchases.

As in Question 13 above, one can make similarly rough projections about Faculty and Staff purchasing power from this data. For instance, assuming the median price for each category (e.g., $250 for the "$100 to $499" category) and a population of 13,000, UW Faculty and Staff plan making nearly $7 million in personal purchases within the next 6 months. Again, these are rough projections so caution should be exercised when interpreting them.

15. What kind of computer software do you regularly use? [check all that apply]

The following table is remarkable only in its relative stability. Word processing, Internet tools, and email continue to be the most widely used software products on campus. There were no significant drops or gains from last year.

16. Which of the following campus computing services are you aware of and which have you used? [Check all that apply]

This table shows that awareness increased in many areas. The largest gains in awareness were for Product Sales, the walk-in Help Desk, the New Media Center and TechNews. Dial-in also showed an increase, but this is probably due to a change over last year in the wording of this service. Notable declines occurred in LTDE and DoIT product/services literature.

Use remained quite stable this year. The largest real increase was for Product Sales. The same caveat for Dial-in awareness is relevant here. Only one service declined substatially, Product/Service literature.

17. How would you rate the quality of each of the services listed below? Circle one rating for each service using the scale below. If you have not used a service, circle N=Not Used.

1=Very poor; 2=Poor; 3=Neither good nor poor; 4=Good; 5=Very good

Only respondents who indicated in Question 16 that they used a service were allowed to rate the quality of that service. These ratings remained quite stable since last year. The largest rating increase was for computer training videos. There were no significant ratings drops.

18. How important is each of these services to you? Circle one rating from the scale below for each service.

1=Not at all important; 2=Unimportant; 3=Neither important nor unimportant; 4=Important; 5= Very important

All respondents were allowed to judge the importance of these computing resources. Again, stability largely ruled the day for these services. The largest increase in importance was for Dial-in, but the same caveat mentioned above holds here; this increase might be due to how Dial-in was described this year.

19. How do you rate the overall availability of the computing resources that UW-Madison provides?

The percentage of Faculty and Staff rating the overall ability of computing resources as "very good" increased dramatically by 13%.

20. How satisfied are you with the overall quality of information technology resources that UW-Madison provides?

There was a moderate increase in the percentage of respondents who said they were "very satisfied" with the overall quality of information technology.

21. Compared to last year at this time, what is your current satisfaction level with the computing resources available at the UW-Madison?

22. Please explain your answer to question 21.

23. Do you want training in the use of information technology?

24. In what areas do you want training? [check all that apply]

Both general and specific interest in training continues to trend downward. Among the areas below, the largest increase in interest was for presentation graphics software.

25. In what one area would you recommend UW-Madison improve its information technology offerings?

While "more training" was the most popular response to this question, this is probably the result of a priming effect. After answering an extensive set of questions about training, respondents, it was most likely at the top of their mind when answering this question. Technical support and dial-in access were other popular responses.

25a. How important do you think it is that UW-Madison improve this area of informational technology offerings?

26. Was your decision to teach or work at UW-Madison based, in part, on its campus computing resources?

27. What is your classification?

28. What is your department?

29. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about DoIT or the computing resources and services DoIT provides?

Faculty and Instructional Staff Only:

30. Which of the following have you used and which do you plan to use in the future?

31. Do you want training in how to incorporate technology into your teaching?

32. How would you like to receive it?