January 14, 1999
written by Marketing Communications contact: Barry Radler Division of Information Technology University of Wisconsin - Madison
1 - Computer and Internet Use 2 - Awareness and Use if Computing Services 3 - Other Services 4 - Demographic Information
The 1999 Faculty/Staff Computing Survey was the latest in DoIT's annual attempt to gauge IT needs, concerns, and performance on the UW campus. The 1999 survey follows closely on the heels of the 1998 Faculty/Staff Survey which was conducted in Spring, 1998. In order to make more timely use of the data this survey supplies to DoIT, the present survey--and all future ones--are being conducted during the Fall term. Specific objectives of the survey were to:
The 1998 Faculty/Staff Computing Survey was mailed to 1000 randomly selected UW-Madison Faculty and Staff beginning October 15, 1998, accompanied with a postage-paid return envelope. Returns were collected until December 22, 1998. Two follow-up mailings were sent to obtain a final response of 51 percent (506 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.
Overall, Faculty and Staff personal computer ownership continued to grow slightly to 81%, with most of this trend accounted for by staff who have lagged behind faculty. The vast majority of respondents have desktop computers at home and about 30% of those own more than one. The percentage of respondents owning laptops increased to 28% from 24% last year. Windows 95 continues to be the dominant operating system (OS) in computers faculty and staff use at home and at work (see Question 6). Computer use by Faculty and Staff at the UW remains very high at 91%.
Virtually all (94%) respondents report using the Internet in some capacity. Of these, 35% had made at least one online purchase in the past year and most of these people made multiple purchases. When connecting to the Internet at home or locations away from the UW, 60% use the UW dial pool. The next most popular mode for Internet connection is a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP). Again this year, 16% of respondents said they use an ISP. Before this year, commercial ISP use increased every time it was measured. The vast majority of ISP users appear to use a commercial service for reasons unrelated to WiscWorld modem pool performance (see Question 10a). About 21% said they 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 (67%). Seventeen percent of campus office connections are via dial-in. The average time per week spent dialed-in to the Internet was 8.2 hours. This figure is not directly comparable to last year's data (5.3 hours) since we included all Internet connection time, not just WiscWorld modem pool connections. A relatively small group of users (17%) spent 15 hours or more per week connected to the Internet. These users were markedly different in their behavior on a number of other measures (see Question 12).
Two product purchase questions indicate the size of DoIT's potential market (see Questions 13 and 14). Twenty-two percent of faculty and staff purchased a desktop computer within the last 6 months. This translates into 2,870 individuals purchasing one or more desktop computers. A similar number of faculty and staff plan to purchase desktop computers in the next 6 months. In dollar value, faculty and staff indicated they had spent more than $10.5 million on computing hardware and software in the past six months. These figures are not directly comparable to last year's in that this year we did not differentiate between personal and University purchasing.
When asked to allocate $100 among ten computing services, respondents allocated the most to "technical support" and "training." The other eight services were somewhat undifferentiated, all but two receiving around $10 each. There were large differences between faculty and staff regarding the importance of "technical support" (faculty allocated more $) and "training" (staff allocated more $). See Question 15.
A perceptual map showed that DoIT is closely associated with "technical support," "learning/instructional technology," and "customized software design." "Hardware sales" and "software sales" are clearly associated with local retailers (2), large chain stores (6) and mail order companies (7). Likewise, "advice" is closely associated with friends and relatives (3) and people are likely to look to themselves (1) for "training." (See Question 16)
Awareness of most services remained quite steady over 1998 with just a few exceptions (see Question 17). The use of three DoIT services increased significantly over last year (New Media Centers, DoIT catalog and showroom product information, and Dial-in). Overall availability ratings of computing resources at UW-Madison continued to increase, with 87% rating availability as "very good" or "good." There was some change in quality ratings for individual DoIT services since 1998. Last year, 81% were "very satisfied" or "satisfied" with the quality of IT resources on campus, compared with 75% this year.
Training Although overall desire for additional training has experienced a slight downward trend over the past three years, 47% still express an interest in training. The top three areas people expressed interest in were "spreadsheets," "general computer use," and "web site development." The distribution of responses on this question varied from prior years because we asked the question differently (see Question 21). Respondents indicated that regular business hours were by far the best time to take a training course and the top three potential barriers to receiving training dealt with scheduling and price concerns.
Improvements Echoing the responses to Question 15 (allocation of $ to services), respondents volunteered "technical support and personnel improvements" as the top area in which UW-Madison could improve its IT offerings. Others mentioned were dial-in modem speed, training, and improvement in costs and cost accounting.
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. Generally, the figures reported here take into account only those individuals who answered the question. Thus, if 26 respondents failed to provide an answer to a question, the percentage is based on a total of 480 respondents (506 - 26 = 480).
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 cases can be identified by instructions at the end of the question, "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.
The slight blip in the 1998 data, where reported computer ownership by faculty dropped, smoothed out this year. Staff continued a slow trend of catching up with faculty. Overall, 81% of faculty and staff on campus now have a computer at home.
The vast majority of faculty and staff own a desktop computer, with about 30% owning more than one.
Other
Almost everyone at UW-Madison uses a computer for work. While there seems to be a trend showing a drop in use by faculty, the substantive implications are small due to the overall level of saturation of use.
Staff (31.7%) are much more likely than faculty (12.8%) to share computers.
Faculty (n=125)
Staff (n=353)
OVERALL (n=478)
As with home computer use, desktop computers are by far the most popular, with 60% of respondents reporting they use more than one. Those using workstations are very likely using more than one.
6. Which operating platforms do you use on the computer(s) you own and/or those you use at the UW? [check all that apply]
The following two tables show the OS used on personally-owned and UW computers, respectively. There has not been much change over the past three years in the distribution of operating systems, with the exception of Windows. However, this is essentially an artifact of asking about the different versions of Windows; Microsoft's market share has not changed substantially among home or UW computers. The only exception to this has been the increase in use of Windows NT at the University.
Note that we did not ask about Windows 98, which should have been included with Windows 95 as a response option. The relatively large percentage of "Other" responses (especially for owned computers) indicates that people might have volunteered Windows 98.
Own computer
University computer
7. On average, about how many hours per week this semester have you used a computer?
UW faculty and staff used a computer an average 22.9 hours during the Fall '98/'99 semester. Only 1.2% of respondents said they did not use a computer last semester.
8. Do you use the Internet for browsing, email, etc. while doing work at home or at UW-Madison?
9. How many times in the past year have you purchased products or services online?
Questions 9 through 12 were follow-up questions for those who responded that they did use the Internet.
Thirty-five percent of Internet users had made at least one online purchase during the last year. As the table below shows, these individuals were likely to have made multiple online purchases in the last year; 24% of faculty and staff had made more than 2 or more purchases.
10. When you are at home or locations away from the UW, how do you connect to the Internet?
Note that the 13.4% in 1998 volunteered that they did not connect to the Internet while away from the UW. This year it was included as a response option and, as predicted, garnered more responses (20.8%). This likely accounts for the concomitant drop in "don't know's." The percentage of respondents using a commercial ISP leveled off for the first time since its measurement.
10a. Why do you use an ISP to connect to the Internet?
A follow-up question was asked of commercial ISP users in order to determine why they paid for such a service when a free one (WiscWorld) was available to them. The responses are heartening for DoIT, in that only a small percentage of commercial ISP users (17%) said they used it because of an implied lack of service in the WiscWorld modem pool.
11. How are the computers you use at the UW connected to the Internet? [check all that apply]
There was very little change in Internet connection modalities at the UW.
12. On average, how much time do you spend per week connected to the Internet (WiscWorld modem dial-in pool in 1998)? Please estimate your time per week for both this year and next.
Faculty and Staff spent an average 8.2 hours per week connected to the Internet. This is a substantial increase over last year, which saw an average 5.3 hours connected to the WiscWorld modem pool. Many of the differences between this and last year are likely due to wording of the question. For the 1999 survey we asked about Internet connections generally, instead of connections to the WiscWorld modem pool as we did in 1998. The rationale was that many people were answering it as a general Internet use question, and that DoIT could more accurately gauge WiscWorld modem pool usage in-house if desired.
Faculty and staff had slightly different Internet usage rates, with faculty connecting to the Internet an average 6.7 hours and staff connecting an average 8.8 hours per week.
As with the past two years, a close look at the numbers reveals that the increase in average connection time per week 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. 17.1% of Internet users spent more than 15 hours per week on the Internet. When these extreme users are taken into account (or held constant), average Internet use for in 1999 was 3.8 hours, slightly higher than in 1997 and 1998 (3.3 hours).
In 1998, 9.3% spent more than 15 hours per week on the modem pool. This compares with 1997 where 5% spent more than 15 hours per week on the modem pool. There were no differences between Faculty and Staff in use.
These extreme users were profiled on a number of variables. Some of their more interesting characteristics are:
13. Which of the following items have you purchased in the last 6 months? What items do you plan to purchase in the next 6 months? [check all that apply]
The table below illustrates that almost 75% of faculty and staff have purchased computing hardware and software in the last six months. The biggest gap between what they spent in the last six months and what they plan to spend in the next six months was in "memory." Also of interest is the fact that almost half of respondents had purchased software in the past six months, and planned to do so again in the coming six months.
14. How much have you spent on computing hardware and software in the last 6 months? How much do you plan to spend in the next 6 months?
This year we did not break spending behavior into personal and University purchases. This was partly done in order to make the question simpler to understand.
One can make 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 have made more than $10.5 million in purchases within the last 6 months. Again, these are rough projections so caution should be exercised when interpreting them.
15. Below is a list of possible computing services people might want. If you had $100 to split up among them, how much would you allocate to each of the following services? If you don't want to allocate any money to an area just write "0."
"Technical support" was clearly the most important computing service faculty and staff want, at least as measured by the dollars allocated to it. Interestingly, "training" came in a clear second. This would appear to somewhat contradict the lagging interest in training as measured by this and past years' surveys (see Question 20).
There were differences between faculty and staff in the amount they allocated to the top two services. Faculty allocate more money to "technical support," while staff allocate more to "training." These differences were statistically significant.
16. Thinking about computing and information technology needs, circle the number that corresponds to the one provider you are most likely to choose for each service using the scale below.
1=Self 2=Local retailer (e.g., A-plus Computech, Advantage) 3=Friend/relative 4=DoIT 5=Department or resident expert 6=Large chain store (e.g., Best Buy, CompUSA) 7=Mail order (e.g., Dell, Gateway)
This question is designed to provide data which can be presented in a perceptual map. The following figure is the result of performing a correspondence analysis on the data from Question 26. Correspondence analysis is an exploratory data analysis technique for the graphical display of crosstab tables and categorical data. The multivariate nature of correspondence analysis shows relationships between variables that are not readily apparent from standard methods of analysis. This technique is used for positioning studies because it shows how variables are related, not just that they are related.
Respondents were asked which of seven product and service providers they would choose for the eight services asked about in question 15. All seven providers are represented in the following graph as numbers (refer to the legend). The eight services are represented as squares. The reader can see which computer retailers are associated with particular attributes by looking at the distances between a provider and a service. For illustrative purposes there is a circle surrounding DoIT (4). Looking at the services within this circle we see that DoIT is closely associated with "technical support," "learning/instructional technology," and "customized software design." The farther a service lies from DoIT, the less people associate that service with DoIT. The same goes for the other providers and corresponding services. For instance, "hardware sales" and "software sales" are clearly associated with local retailers (2), large chain stores (6) and mail order companies (7). Likewise, "advice" is intimately associated with friends and relatives (3) and people are likely to look to themselves (1) for "training."
Perceptual maps afford us a wealth of information in an easily grasped format. To these ends the perceptual map below incorporated data respondents provided in question 15. This information is represented through the prominence of the "service" squares; the larger the square the more money respondents allocated it in question 15 and the more important it is. For example, looking at the perceptual map we see the largest square is "technical support," thus it is the most important service in the minds of our customers, and is closely associated with DoIT. Likewise, friends and relatives are associated with "advice," but this service is of lesser importance to respondents.
Ultimately, the integration of all this information tells us which services our customers associate with DoIT and other providers, as well as how important these corresponding services are.
17. Which of the following campus computing services are you aware of? For those you are aware of, how many times did you use them last semester[Check all that apply]
The table below shows awareness rates for the past three years. Services in which awareness rose or fell by 10 or more percentage points are highlighted. Two services are highlighted below. Each was referred to differently in the past surveys, which leads one to think that the shifts can be explained as artifacts of different titles for the same services.
Aware respondents were asked how many times they used each service. Equipment service saw a substantial drop, but this could be the result of different descriptions in 1999. The New Media Centers more than doubled in reported use.
The only other service to increase by more than 10 percentage points was DoIT catalog and showroom product information, again probably due to the change in its description this year. Other notable movements were a large drop in the use of Computer Training Workshops and almost a tripling of use of DoIT LTDE among aware respondents. TechNews also saw a jump in use of 7.5%.
WiscWorld
18. How do you rate the overall availability of the computing resources that UW-Madison provides?
Availability ratings continued to improve in 1999. Those rating the availability of UW computing resources as "very good" has almost doubled in the past three years.
19. How satisfied are you with the overall quality of information technology resources that UW-Madison provides?
While overall satisfaction declined slightly this year, 75% of faculty and staff are still "very satisfied" or "satisfied" with the overall quality of IT resources on campus.
20. Do you want training in the use of information technology?
Interest in training continued to trend downwards.
21. In what areas do you want training? [check all that apply]
This year, instead of providing response categories for respondents this question was left open-ended. Not surprisingly, the results are different from prior years' findings. The table below presents the answers provided by faculty and staff in rank order. The last column in the table shows the percentage of respondents volunteering interest in each training area. Last year's rank for each service is provided in parentheses.
In general, interest in most areas was muted in comparison with 1997 and 1998. Yet last year's top ten areas are well represented in this year's top ten. Two exceptions were "presentation graphics" and "desktop publishing," both of which have been popular items in recent years. Here they are 12th and 14th, respectively. There were several general or vague area respondents expressed interest in, such as "general use of computer," "software," "Windows operating systems," and "networks."
22. During which of the following times would you prefer to take a training course? [Check all that apply]
Regular business hours are clearly the preferred time to take a training course.
23. What barriers are likely to keep you from getting training in computing? [Check all that apply]
All respondents were asked what barriers were likely to keep them from getting training in computing. The propensity of scheduling concerns among the top three concerns might be the result of the previous question priming such choices. Those who want training are much more concerned with almost all barriers. But those who do not want training are more likely to cite "ability to find time during work day" as a concern. For these respondents, this barrier is clearly the biggest.
24. Have you contracted with DoIT to develop or acquire products or services in the past year?
25. How satisfied were you with the contracting process?
Of those who had contracted with DoIT in the past year, about 77% were either "satisfied" or "very satisfied."
Very satisfied
26. If you were dissatisfied with the contracting process, please tell us why?
Lack of tech support for those services
Lack of responses to problems, people don't call back
27 Do you ever need special equipment (e.g., campus backbone connection, LCD overhead, etc.) set up in a room?
28. How likely are you to use a full-service answering or message center at the UW?
About 29% of respondents were "somewhat likely" or "very likely" to use a full-service answering or message center at the UW.
29. How likely would you be to purchase the following services, either for yourself or your department? Circle one rating from the scale below for each service.
1=Very likely 2=Somewhat likely 3=Somewhat unlikely 4=Not at all likely
There was very little differentiation among the services listed, with respondents expressing little interest in any of them.
30. Which of the following do you use when you need repair or service on computers and information technology? [Check all that apply]
31. How satisfied are you with the service method you chose in Question 30?
Note that the lower the average value in the following table, the greater the satisfaction. Those who have an extended or enhanced warranty, while a clear minority, are the most satisfied on average.
1. Very satisfied 2. Satisfied 3. Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 4. Dissatisfied 5. Very dissatisfied
32. How would you prefer your computer and information technology be serviced and repaired?
33. How often do you need to rent computing equipment?
34. When such a need arises, what are you likely to rent?
Laptop
35. Was your decision to teach or work at UW-Madison based, in part, on its campus computing resources?
36. What is your classification?
Classified
37. What is your department?
38. In what one area would you recommend UW-Madison improve its information technology offerings?
The responses to this question are informative in two ways. First, the top five items from both this year's and last year's survey are very similar: tech support, training and purchasing/costs are noted. This echoes the priorities that respondents indicated in allocating money across computing services in question 15. Regardless of how we asked, these 3 items appear to be our customer's top concerns.
On a more technical note, the distribution of responses between this and last year have some interesting dissimilarities as well. For instance, while more than half of this year's respondent's volunteered some type of answer to this question about IT improvements, less than a fifth of 1998's respondents did so. Also notice that the most popular response to 1998's question was "nothing, excellent," something along the lines of, "you're doing a good job." Yet far fewer volunteered this answer in 1999. This illustrates the effect of question wording. 1998's question sounds like polite closure, almost a conversational nicety. To many respondents it probably seemed an obligatory query for those who have a complaint with DoIT or UW IT offerings. Many skipped it and the responses of those who did answer were just as polite. 1999's question was a less conversational and more appropriate for the information we were trying to garner. Many more perceived it as a valid question querying an important topic, and were less likely to answer it politely.
Tech support and personnel improvements
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about DoIT or the computing resources and services DoIT provides?