2003-04 UW-Madison Faculty/Staff
Computing Survey
written by: Kathi Dwelle
contact: kjdwelle@wisc.edu
Division of
Information Technology (DoIT)
University of
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
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
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< = 12% |
|
Unix |
9% |
9% |
8% |
8% |
|
Linux |
3% |
7% |
6% |
9% |
|
Other |
2.1% |
3.3% |
2.6% |
4% |
Internet use
6. When you are at home or off-campus, how do you access the Internet? [Check all
that apply]
Off campus and at home,
fewer faculty and staff are using the campus-provided WiscWorld dial-in pool to
connect to the internet. Use declined
from 51% a year ago to 41%. Use of a commercial
ISP also declined to 16%, although the drop was not statistically
significant. Those providers seeing
increases from the previous year were cable modem from 14% to 23%, and DSL from
7% to 19%. Both cable and DSL enjoyed
high satisfaction ratings, on a par with having a direct broadband connection.
Analyses on Internet access were done by faculty and staff to see if there were any differences. Staff (13%) are more likely than faculty (1%) to not access the internet at all from off-campus. We found faculty members more likely to use DSL (29%) than staff (17%), but no difference in their use of cable modem.
Since use of the campus modem pool is declining, we looked at use by department or unit.
We found no significant difference in use of the WiscWorld dial-in pool by faculty and staff, but did find differences by department. Departments with the largest percentages of staff still using the pool are from Pharmacy (56%), Business (54%), Agriculture and Life Sciences (51%), Letters & Science (49%) and Engineering (47%). Lower use was reported by DoIT (28%), Administrative Offices -non-academic (32%), and Veterinary Medicine (33%).
7.
Overall, how satisfied are you with the performance of [insert each
applicable Internet mode from q6]?
There was a strong upward movement in satisfaction across all providers from a year ago.
However, faculty were less satisfied with commercial ISPs (2.8 on a 1 to 5 scale) than staff (3.7). That dissatisfaction may explain their migration to DSL.
|
|
Nov 2002 (5-point scale) |
Dec 2003 (5-point scale) |
|
Cable modem |
4.2 |
4.5 (n=139) |
|
DSL |
4.0 |
4.5 (n=91) |
|
Direct network connection to campus |
3.6 |
4.5 (n=25) |
|
WiscWorld modem pool |
3.5 |
3.8
(n=213) |
Commercial ISP
|
3.3 |
3.4 (n=43) |
Wireless
|
- |
4.3 (n=24) |
8. Why do you use a commercial provider to connect to the Internet? [check all that apply]
A follow-up question was asked of commercial ISP, DSL, and cable modem users in order to determine why they paid for such a service when a free one (WiscWorld) was available to them.
Over half the respondents checked the superior speed of the commercial product. Additionally, 38% said they wanted to keep their personal use separate from work.
|
|
Dec 2003 (n=282) |
|
Speed is better with my commercial provider |
51% |
|
To keep personal use separate from work |
38% |
|
Quality is better with my commercial ISP |
16% |
|
Already had a commercial ISP before working at UW |
14% |
|
It’s a long distance call to use campus modem pool |
9% |
|
Service was pre-installed on my computer |
1% |
|
Other |
18% |
9. Which
of these Internet applications do you use?
Around half of the respondents surveyed say they use one or more of the Internet application choices listed (i.e., something beyond a browser). About a quarter of the respondents indicate they now use a commercial instant messaging service. A quarter also use streaming music or video. Staff are much more likely to use instant messaging than faculty (30% vs. 11%), but there is no difference in the two groups’ use streaming media. Faculty are somewhat more likely to use peer to peer file sharing (20% vs. 16%). As yet, not many are doing desktop video conferencing, but of those faculty responding, they were more likely than staff to use it (7% vs. 1%).
|
|
Dec 2003 |
|
Commercial instant messaging (AOL, Yahoo, MSN) |
27% |
|
Streaming music or video |
25% |
|
Peer-to-peer file sharing |
17% |
|
Live video conferencing (scheduled event, larger audience) |
4% |
|
Desktop video conferencing (one-to-one with workstation camera) |
2% |
|
Campus WiscChat online chat |
1% |
|
|
|
|
None of these |
51% |
Computing services and
DoIT’s “position” as a provider
10. Below is a list of factors that can affect the
experience of owning or operating computers and other information technology.
Assuming 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.”
Enabling the
purchasing of technology goods and services is preferred by our audience far
more than any other of the other services asked about. Product information and recommendations is
the least-preferred service. Not
surprisingly, faculty allocated more money to instructional technology support,
while staff allocated more to general training.
Relative preference for
six computing services
11. Thinking about your computing and information
technology needs, indicate the one provider you are most likely to choose for
each service using the scale below.
1=Self
2=Local
retailer (e.g., Advantage Computers, Madison Computer Works, etc.)
3=Friend/relative
4=DoIT
5=Department
or resident expert
6=Large
chain store (e.g.,
7=Mail
order (e.g., Dell, NewEgg.com)
8=UW
school or college support units
When
asked to pick among eight possible providers, respondents signaled a key role
for their departmental or resident experts.
Those experts were the top choice for purchasing IT goods and services,
for desktop support and for product information and recommendations. The experts came in 2nd for post
sales support and instructional technology support. DoIT was the top choice for
post sales support (help desk), instructional technology support and training.
A
number of respondents relied on themselves for training and for desktop
support.
Provider
Preference
|
Computing Service |
Top Choice |
Second Choice |
|
Purchasing IT
Goods & Services |
Dept. or
resident expert (25%) |
DoIT (20%) |
|
Post Sales
Support (Help Desk) |
DoIT (40%) |
Dept. or
resident expert (24%) |
|
Desktop
Support (Installation & Repair) |
Dept or
resident expert (38%) |
Myself /DoIT (18%/18%) |
|
Training |
DoIT (30%) |
Myself (28%) |
|
Instructional
Technology Support |
DoIT (30%) |
Dept or
resident expert (25%) |
|
Product
Information & Recommendations |
Dept or
resident expert (27%) |
Friend/
relative (21%) |
Tech Store
Except
for the Online Catalog most Tech Store services showed a decrease in customer
awareness from the previous year. The
phone-in Help Desk had 85% awareness, but that was lower than the previous
year. Fewer than half the respondents
were aware of the Help Desk by web (Help Online). This year we split apart the components of
getting product information and making the actual sales purchase. The sales component has high awareness (82%),
but the product information service reflects only half the degree of awareness
(40%). In retrospect we probably should have
added “showroom” to the generic description.
12. Which of the following DoIT-provided services are
you aware of? [Check all that apply]
Overall,
awareness seemed to show the normal survey-to-survey fluctuations with the
exceptions of Installation and Repair and Help Desk by web, which showed more
noticeable drops.
* Sales and product
recommendations were bundled together in these surveys.
Other Central
Services
Awareness of Service Dec 2003 (n=521) WiscMail
(university email) 89% WiscWorld - on CD 79% My UW Madison (web portal, MUM) 72% WiscWorld - downloaded 55% WiscCal (calendar & scheduling) 38% Bucky Backup 26%
Use of DoIT-provided services among Aware respondents
**
Note: This mean is inflated by outlier
data. The median is 1.
*
Sales and product recommendations were bundled together in this survey
14. Using the scale provided, please rate your
satisfaction these DoIT-Provided services.
Average satisfaction ratings among
Tech Store customers
UW-Madison has
installed a wireless network with access points at over 15 public locations.
16. Do you currently use wireless computing
(either on campus or elsewhere)? [check all that apply]
17. If yes, where
have you used wireless computing?
18. How likely will
you be to use campus wireless hot spots in the next 12 months?
19. What would it
take for you to use wireless hot spots? [check all that apply]
Inducements to using a wireless hot spot |
Dec 2003(n=402) |
20. Do you plan to
receive training in the next year?
21. In what areas
would you like to have training? [open ended]
22. What is your
primary role at the University?
|
Other (library, medical, outreach, athletics, IT
support, clinical, advising, marketing, etc) |
Understand Classroom Differences
25. Regarding the course that you could not get
a technology classroom,
a. What day(s) of the week and time
of day was your course offered?
b. How many students are in this
class each semester on the average?
No
significant findings were discovered in analyzing this question as there was
only one response.
Demographics (before
weighting)
What is your
department or unit?
In what one area
would you recommend DoIT improve?