June 18, 1998
written by Communications Division of Information Technology University of Wisconsin - Madison
The 1998 DoIT Student Computing Survey was designed to provide DoIT guidance on how well it is doing and how it might better serve student information technology needs. Specifically, the objectives of the survey were to:
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.
The percentage of computer owners remained steady this year at 65%. Consistent with last year's results, upperclassmen and graduate students are much more likely to own a computer (see Table 1). Of those who own computers, 86% own a desktop system and 23% own a laptop. While the desktop market is overwhelmingly PC (77%), note that for laptops Macs still lag behind PCs but account for a larger proportion (37%) of the machines.
UW students tend to use computers that are supplied by the University. InfoLab computers (81%) are particularly popular, followed by UW department or classroom computers (63%) and friend's/relative's computers (58%), respectively. Interestingly, students tend to use InfoLabs and UW computers whether they own a computer or not. Students who do not own computers are much more likely to use a friend's/relative's computer (77%) than student computer owners (49%). Also of note is the fact that computer owners (44%) are more likely than non-owners (35%) to use a computer at work. This could indicate numerous things; perhaps these students are more likely to have jobs where some computer expertise is required, it could also be that computer owners use computers more in general.
Internet Resources and Use Students are about twice as likely to use the WiscWorld dial-in modem pool (62%) or an InfoLab (59%) as a direct network connection (30%), though there is substantial overlap in use between the modem pool and these two resources. Two increases since last year's survey are notable. Direct network connection use almost doubled and commercial ISP use increased by about a third, though the latter is not statistically significant. Not surprisingly, students who used direct network connections tended to be Freshmen living on campus. The WiscWorld dial-in modem pool tended to be used by upper classmen and grad students living off-campus.
While Internet and WiscWorld dial-in use has risen over the last three years (see Figure 3), 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 more people are using the Internet for more extreme periods of time. For instance, while only a small fraction of a percent spent 40 hours or more connected to the dial-in modem pool in 1996, about 1.5% were connected to the Internet for 80 hours or more in 1998.
DoIT Services: Awareness and Use Several DoIT services experienced sharp drops in awareness, an effect mollified by taking into account 1996 data (see Table 8). In particular, free Student Peer Computer Training, Computer Workshops for a fee, I & R, Help Desk (walk-in), FTP and Newsreader all had significant overall drops of 10% or more. Slight increases were measured for ARCH labs, and the Tech Store. It is possible that the drops measured in I & R, Showroom and Help Desk and the concomitant increase in the Tech Store are the result of Marketing's efforts to promote the Tech Store as customers' one contact point for any computing needs or questions.
Along with awareness, there were drops in use of some DoIT services (see Table 9). Some of the more significant drops were among the Showroom, Help Desk (walk-in), InfoLabs (yet we measured increases in the use of InfoLabs as Internet connections), FTP and Newsreader. Popular services such as Email and Dial-in are used often throughout the semester, while less popular services such as DoIT I & R (only 10% have used I & R) are used less often.
Training Interest in training remained constant over the last year at about 50%, but interest in specific areas continued to drop. The top areas students would like training are web page development (48%), presentation (40%), and--a new response option this year--hardware installation (39%). The positive response to hardware installation might indicate that the training needs are shifting from working with the computer to actually working on the computer (updating hardware, doing preventive maintenance, etc.). This is evidenced by looking at student class; upperclassmen and graduate students were much more likely to show interest in hardware installation, a relationship not found in other training areas. Among those students who indicated an interest in training, the main barrier from pursuing training is time, with 70% saying they are too busy. Forty-two percent indicate they are not aware of training in computing.
Improvements The top two improvements or investments students would make in UW-Madison computing services (as measured by the amount of money students would allocate to them) were "additional computers in computer labs" and "continued unlimited dial-in access" (see Table 24). Combining the dollar amounts allocated for "dial-in issues" accounts for almost a third of students' allocations. A number of open-ended questions within the survey garnered similar data, with improvements and upgrades in campus computers and technology mentioned rather prominently in all of them.
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 "check all that apply" instructions.
Care should be taken in interpreting certain data, keeping in mind what response options students were asked to choose. 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.
1. Do you own a computer?
2. What type of computer do you own? [CHECK ALL THAT APPLY]
Percentages do not sum to 100. If a individual checked "desktop" they were then asked if it was a PC or Mac. Individuals could check both of these options. Thus, for instance, the percentage of PCs (69%) plus the percentage of Macs (21%) do not equal the total desktop systems owned (86%). While the desktop market is overwhelmingly PC (77%), note that for laptops, Macs still lag behind PCs but account for a larger proportion (37%) of the machines.
UW students tend to use computers that are supplied by the University. InfoLab computers are particularly popular.
5. Which operating systems do you prefer to use? [CHECK ALL THAT APPLY]
The following table shows the clout the Mac systems have with students. Remember that only about 22% of students said they used a Mac OS on their computers, while 59% used Win 95. Here we see that, given a choice, many more students prefer Mac (35%) than use it, while only a few more students prefer Win95 (67%) than use it. Note also that approximately a quarter of students prefer to use Windows NT.
6. How do you access the Internet? [CHECK ALL THAT APPLY]
Students are about twice as likely to use the WiscWorld dial-in modem pool or an InfoLab as a direct network connection. Two increases since last year's survey are notable. Direct network connection use almost doubled and commercial ISP use increased by about a third. Not surprisingly, students who used direct network connections tended to be Freshmen living on campus. The WiscWorld dial-in modem pool tended to be used by upper classmen and grad students living off-campus. These figures also indicate a degree of overlap. That is, students tend to use more than one of these options to access the Internet, with about half of direct network connectors and InfoLab users also using the WiscWorld modem pool.
While the increase in ISP use from 1997 is probably not significant (remember the margin or error = +/- 4.7%), upperclassmen are more likely to use an ISP than underclassmen. Special students also tend to have higher ISP usage rates.
7. On average, how many hours per week have you spent connected to the Internet this school year?
The average amount of time per week students spent connected to the Internet this school year was 7.7 hours, compared to an estimate of 6.5 hours in 1997.
8. Will you be attending the UW-Madison next year?
9. On average, how many hours per week do you expect to spend connected to the Internet next school year?
Of those students who plan to attend the UW next year (n=356), the average amount of time they expect to spend connected to the Internet next year was 8.8 hours. This compares to 1997 data on the same question in which students expected to be spending 7.2 hours on the Internet this year.
One caveat should be mentioned here. The averages in this case do not tell the whole story. The distributions of actual use over the past three years show that extreme users have been largely responsible for increase in average use. For instance, the percentage of students using the Internet or WiscWorld modem pool more than 14 hours per week was 4.3% in 1996, 7.1% in 1997 and 12.4% in 1998. Internet use has not increased to the extent that the average indicates when these individuals are taken into account.
10. Which of the following services are you aware of? [CHECK ALL THAT APPLY]
The following table is interesting because of the drop in awareness among many of DoIT's services. In particular, Free Student Peer Computer Training, Computer Workshops for a fee, Showroom, I & R, Help Desk (walk-in), FTP and Newsreader all had significant overall drops of 10% or more. The Showroom and I & R saw some large (anomalous?) jumps in 1997; awareness for these two particular services returned to 1996 levels in 1998.
Slight increases were measured for ARCH labs, and the Tech Store. It is possible that the drops measured in I & R, Showroom and Help Desk and the concomitant increase in the Tech Store are the result of Marketing's efforts to promote the Tech Store as customers' one contact point for any computing needs or questions.
With the exception of FTP and Newsreader, WiscWorld services show marked stability in awareness over the last three years.
Along with awareness, there were drops in use of some DoIT services. Some of the more significant drops were among the Showroom, Help Desk (walk-in), InfoLabs (yet we measured increases in the use of InfoLabs as Internet connections), FTP and Newsreader. As with awareness, the Showroom and I & R saw the same "blip" in the 1997 data and returned to 1996 levels this year. In fact, this "blip" relationship can be seen across many of the services. At this time, Marketing Communications cannot explain this. Data from each survey was weighted and treated similarly and yet it seems unlikely that usage rates for these services could increase and drop so dramatically within a two year period.
The proportion of students using a service appears strongly related to the average number of times students use these services. That is, popular services such as Email and Dial-in are used often throughout the semester.
There is very little deviation among the following ratings. The poorest ratings were for training services (although these also had the fewest students rating them). There is no comparison data available from last year; in 1997 we asked about customers' perceptions of the quality of these services.
13. How satisfied are you overall with the computing resources UW-Madison provides? [CHECK ONE BOX ONLY]
14. Think back to last year at this same time. Compared to last year, what is your current satisfaction level with the computing resources available for your use at the UW-Madison?
15. Please explain your answer to question 14.
16. How would you rate the overall availability of the computing resources at UW-Madison? (1996 data not on comparable scale)
17. What new or improved information technology services and resources would you like at the UW-Madison?
18. In the past semester, how often did you use a computer for your academic work? Please include all computers you have used for academic work. [CHECK ONE BOX ONLY]
19. What kind of computer software do you regularly use? [CHECK ALL THAT APPLY]
The top applications continue to be Email, Word Processing and Internet tools, virtually all students regularly using these. The next most popular application is Information services with 59%.
20. Would you like training in computing?
21. In what areas would you like to have training? [CHECK ALL THAT APPLY]
The top areas students would like training in are web page development (48%), presentation (40%), and, a new response option this year, hardware installation (39%). There was a linear relationship between year in school and desire for hardware installation training, where 28% of freshmen compared with 47% of seniors indicated they wanted training in this area. A similar relationship for training in other areas was not found.
22. What barriers are likely to keep you from getting training in computing?
Among those students who indicated an interest in training, the main barrier from pursuing training is time, with 70% saying they are too busy. Forty-two percent indicated they were not aware of training in computing.
23. DoIT is considering providing areas on campus where students could plug a laptop or notebook computer into the campus network and access email, the Internet, and other software currently offered in InfoLabs. How likely would you be to use such areas?
While interest for laptop pit stop areas on campus was lukewarm overall, among those students with a laptop support was strong for such services. The main reason provided by students opposing these services was the lack of a laptop (59%).
24. Please explain your answer to question 23.
25. If such areas existed, where would you prefer to use these facilities? [CHECK TWO BOXES ONLY]
There is strong support for locating these services within proximity of Library Mall. Students could choose two facilities and about a third of these each were for Memorial Library (37%), Memorial Union (30%) and College Library (29%).
26. DoIT is interested in knowing how you would allocate money towards new or improved computing services. Assuming you had $100 to split up among the following areas, how much would you allocate to each of the following services. If you don't want to allocate any $ to a area just write 0.
The top two computing services (as measured by dollars allocated to them) were "additional computers in computer labs" and "continued unlimited dial-in access." About two-thirds of students dollars would be spent on dial-in issues (continued unlimited dial-in access and higher speed dial-in service) and computer lab improvements (additional computers and upgraded hardware in computer labs)
27. Are there any other new or improved computing resources you think are important?
28. Do you regularly use an InfoLab?
While about 80% of students have used an InfoLab computer while at the UW, only about 47% of students regularly use them.
29. Please rank the following activities according to how much you use them. Put a 1 next to the activity you use most while in the InfoLabs, a 2 next to the second most-used activity, and so on. Lower average rank indicates greater frequency of use.
Among students who regularly use the InfoLabs, using email was the most frequent activity. Happily, using software for course work is also a frequent activity. Of our four activities listed, browsing the Internet was last.
30. Where do you live? [CHECK ONE BOX ONLY]
31. What is your year in school? [CHECK ONE BOX ONLY]
32. What is your age and sex?
Student respondents had a mean age of 23.9 and ranged from 18 to 58.
33. Is there anything else that you would like to tell us about the computing resources and services at the UW-Madison?