2003-04 UW-Madison Faculty/Staff Computing Survey

 

March 31, 2004

 

 

written by:  Kathi Dwelle

contact:  kjdwelle@wisc.edu

Division of Information Technology (DoIT)

University of Wisconsin - Madison

 

Background and Objectives

 

 

The 2003-04 UW-Madison Faculty/Staff Computing Survey was the latest in DoIT’s annual efforts to gauge IT needs, concerns, and performance on the UW campus.  Specific objectives of the survey were to:

 

·        Continue to monitor faculty/staff awareness and use of computing services

·        Obtain respondent perceptions of DoIT’s performance in providing products/services in a competitive environment

·        Document changing information technology behavior

·        Determine relative importance of and preference for new product and service concepts

·        Provide actionable research for training

 

An Overview: Survey Highlights

 

Computer use (questions 1-5)

·        Ownership of information technology equipment increased modestly in some areas and remained level in others:

—       Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) ownership has been slowly increasing from 10% to 26% over a three-year period.

—       Personal cell phone ownership appears to have leveled off around 58%.

—       The percentage of overall laptop owners remained level from a year ago at around 40%.  However, regular use of laptops at UW has increased to 35% from 29% a year ago.

—       Adoption of tablet pcs and wireless handheld devices is low (2-3%).

·        Faculty evidence a significantly more mobile work style than staff.

-       Faculty are much more likely to own a personal laptop (80%) than staff (31%), and their regular use of one is significantly higher.

-       More than half of the faculty responding report owning both a laptop and a desktop (65%) which may indicate that they are not “average” faculty members.

-       Faculty are much more likely to own a PDA (41%) than staff (23%).

-       Faculty use of a portable storage device (34%) is twice that of staff (16%).

·        With respect to operating systems used on personally owned computers:

—       At least 40% of personally owned pcs have older Windows operating systems, creating security vulnerabilities.

·        On computers regularly used at UW:

—       While many have upgraded, around 20% still use older Windows operating systems at the office, again opening up possible security vulnerabilities.

—       A little over a quarter of the respondents report using a Mac at UW and 16% are now using OS X.

—       Linux OS, while still a minority operating system, has increased to 9% of the UW-Madison market.

 

Internet use (questions 6-9)

·        WiscWorld modem pool use by faculty and staff dropped for the third year in a row and is now at 41%.

·        Use of both cable modem (23%) and DSL (19%) continued to increase.

·        Cable modem, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and direct network connections scored the highest satisfaction ratings for Internet access and all ratings increased from the previous year.  Commercial ISP dial modems received the lowest ratings. 

·        Better speed was the number one reason for using DSL and cable, but keeping personal use separate from work was also an important factor.

·        A quarter of the respondents report using streaming music or video.

·        A quarter of respondents are using commercial instant messaging.  Staff are significantly more likely to use it than faculty (30% vs. 11%).

·        The faculty who responded are more likely to use peer to peer file sharing than staff (20% vs. 16%).

    

Tech Store and DoIT Services (questions 10-15)

·        “Purchasing support” for technology goods and services is clearly the most important computing service, relative to five other Tech Store services.  For that service respondents are most likely to rely on their departmental expert, followed by DoIT.

·        Respondent’s top choice for post sales support was strongly DoIT, followed by the department expert.

·        Respondents tend to think first of department experts and then equally of DoIT and themselves when they need installation, repair, and desktop support.

·        Respondents tend to think of DoIT and then themselves when they need training.

·        Of the Tech Store services presented, the online catalog and Help Desk continue to be the most-used services within the past six months.

·        The survey indicates solid improvement in purchasing satisfaction from DoIT.  When rating their most recent purchase, the overall satisfaction score increased from 3.9 last year to 4.3.  High scores were given to the quality and delivery of the product, and to the accuracy of information, knowledge and professionalism of DoIT staff.

·        Product pricing and helpfulness of the online catalog received the lowest satisfaction ratings at 3.9 and were the only ratings below 4.0 on a 5-point scale (5=very satisfied, 1=very dissatisfied.)

WiscCal, WiscMail, My UW Madison   (questions 12-14)

·        WiscMail has the highest adoption rate with 89% aware of it and 75% of those aware using it daily

·        WiscCal has the lowest adoption rate with 42% aware of it and only 41% of those aware using it.

·        Slightly under half of the respondents (48%) make some use of My UW-Madison with 25% making regular use (defined as daily or weekly).  Regular use by the faculty respondents is considerably higher than staff (46% vs. 21%)

·        Satisfaction with WiscWorld and WiscMail was significantly higher than WiscCal and My UW-Madison.

 

Wireless  (questions 16-19)

·        Despite increased regular use of laptops at UW-Madison, growth in the use of wireless hot spots to date is still slow.

·        About a quarter of faculty and staff have used wireless hot spots, either on or off campus.  Home was the most frequently used location.

·        Interest in wireless, however, is rising.  A third of respondents say they are likely to be using wireless in the next 12 months, an increase from one fifth stating interest the previous year.

·        Respondents without laptops chose lack of the right equipment as the primary barrier to using wireless, while others state that having more locations and especially one near them would remove a barrier.  However, some did not see a need for the technology since their work at UW was not mobile.

 

Training (questions 20, 21)

·        Only 24% of respondents expect to receive training in the coming year.

·        Respondents chose DoIT and themselves equally for obtaining training.

·        The topics requested most for training were web page development and design, databases (Access), spreadsheets (Excel) and presentation software (Powerpoint).

 

Instructional Technology (questions 23-26)

·        About half of the respondents whose primary role was instructional did not understand the difference between a department classroom and a general assignment classroom.

·        Around 40% of instructional respondents do not know how to reserve a technology-enhanced classroom, but would like to know.

·        Instructors in a typical 15-week semester say they would make use of technology in the classroom an average of 15 times, or once a week.

 

One Area for Improvement

·        Sixty percent of respondents did not make a suggestion for improvement.  Of those who did the top two themes involved improvement in communication and decision making (5%) and in Help Desk and assistance (5%).

 

 

Computer and Information Technology Products ownership

 

Overall personal ownership of a computer now stands around 88%.  One interesting finding is that 65% of the faculty responding reported personally owning both a laptop and a desktop compared to 24% for staff.  Cell phone ownership has leveled off around 58%.  PDA ownership continued a modest but steady 3-year climb from 10% to 26%.  Wireless handheld devices and Tablet Pcs are at a low level of adoption.

 

1.  Which of the following information technology products do you own?

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 2001

(n=467)

 

Nov 2001

(n=252)

 

Nov 2002

(n=462)

 

Dec 2003

(n=527)

 

 

Desktop

 

80%

 

85%

 

84%

 

81%

 

Laptop

 

29%

 

25%

 

40%

 

39%

 

Cell/wireless phone

 

-

 

44%

 

57%

 

58%

 

PDA  (PalmPilot, PocketPC, etc.)

 

10%

 

15%

 

22%

 

26%

 

Portable Storage Device

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

19%

 

Tablet PC

 

-

 

-

 

-

2%

 

Wireless Handheld email device

 

-

 

-

 

-

3%

 

None

 

 

 

6%

 

 

All these products were analyzed to see if there were differences in ownership between faculty and staff. We also performed some selective comparisons by department when we were aware of initiatives in those areas that might affect ownership.

 

Overall, faculty report owning equipment that is indicative of a more mobile work style.  Faculty were much more likely to own a laptop – 80% vs. only 31% for staff.  While we found no difference in cell phone ownership, faculty are much more likely to own a PDA (41%) than staff (23%) and their use of portable storage devices (34%) is also significantly higher than staff (16%).

We also found a significantly higher use of PDAs by Medical School and Pharmacy respondents (42%) who reported using them for medical databases, keeping track of patients, etc.

 

 

 

 

2.  Which operating systems do you use on the computer(s) you own? 


Not surprisingly the percentage of personally owned computers with a network OS such as NT, 2000, or XP increased steadily over the past three years.  However, around 40% of pc users still report using older operating systems, which impact both support and security upgrades.  Linux use on personally owned computers is holding at 6% and Macintosh use is holding around 25%.

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 2001

(n=467)

 

Nov 2001

(n=244)

 

Nov 2002

(n=408)

 

Dec 2003

(n=470)

 

Windows NT/2000/XP

 

9%

 

21%

 

59%

 

59%

 

Windows 95/98/ME

 

61%

 

60%

 

54%

 

-

 

Windows 98/ME

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

41%

 

Mac

 

21%

 

23%

 

      26%

v.9< = 11%

v.8> = 15%

 

25%

OS X  14%

v.9.x   11%

 

Linux

 

2%

 

4%

 

6%

 

6%

 

Unix

 

0.4%

 

1%

 

4%

 

2%

 

Other

 

0.5%

 

5%

 

3%

 

6%

 

3.  Which of the following information technology products do you regularly use at the UW?


Regular campus use of desktop computers has now topped 92%.  While staff use (93%) is higher than faculty use (88%), the difference is not significant.  Use of laptops, after remaining relatively level for three years, showed an increase to 35% this past year.  Regular laptop use by faculty respondents (60%) is significantly higher than staff (29%).  Regular Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) use is stable.  PDA use among faculty (39%) is significantly higher than staff (17%).  The high cell phone use reported in November 2001 also included the use of mobile phones for that survey.  With respect to cell phones only, regular use by faculty (40%) is significantly higher than staff (22%).  Likewise faculty are three times as likely to regularly use a portable storage device (30%) than staff (10%).  To date tablet pcs and wireless handheld email devices have low adoption rates.

 

 

 

 

Feb 2001

(n=467)

 

Nov 2001

(n=252)

 

Nov 2002

(n=462)

 

Dec 2003  (n=529)

 

 

Desktop

 

80%

 

85%

 

88%

 

92%

 

Laptop

 

29%

 

25%

 

29%

 

35%

 

Cell/wireless phone

 

-

 

44%

 

23%

 

26%

 

Personal Digital Assistant (PDAs: PalmPilot, PocketPC, etc)

 

10%

 

15%

 

20%

 

21%

 

Portable Storage Device

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

13%

 

Tablet PC

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

2%

 

Wireless Handheld email device

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

3%

 

None

 

 

 

 

1%

 

 

 

 

4. If you own/use a Personal Digital Assistant, what do you use it for? (open-ended question)

 

Responses primarily included calendar, scheduling, addresses, phone numbers,  quick notetaking, and contact information. Use for medical/drug reference and patient information was cited by Medical School and Pharmacy respondents.  Several respondents mentioned email, wireless network access, alarm feature to remind them of critical deadlines, keeping public transportation schedules, data collection and using the calculator feature.  A couple cited MP3 playing, taking photographs and using a GPS add-on.

 

5. Which operating systems do you use on the computers you use at the UW?


Networked operating systems are in much greater use than three years ago, now reaching 76%. 

However, one out of five of campus pc users still have older operating systems.  Use of Macintosh operating systems have remained level around 27% during the last three surveys, although the mix has changed.  Linux use, while still a minority operating system, has increased to 9% of the market.

Windows 95 was removed as a choice this year, so those who still use it would be included in the “other” category.

 

 

 

 

Feb 2001

(n=467)

 

Nov 2001

(n=244)

 

Nov 2002

(n=426)

 

Dec 2003

(n=524)

 

 

Windows NT/2000/XP

 

38%

 

53%

 

70%

 

76%

 

Windows 95/98/ME

 

50%

 

34%

 

37%

 

(see below)

 

Windows 98/ME

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

21%

 

Macintosh

 

20%

 

26%

 

25%

v.9< = 11.4%

v.8< = 13.8%

 

27%

OS X< = 16%

v.9