UW students move easily to emerging technologies

New technology tools have broad appeal to University of Wisconsin–Madison students. Already heavy users of technology for learning, communication and social interaction, students seem eager to explore new directions and take advantage of the latest tools.

These findings are part of the 2008 Student Computing Survey conducted last spring by UW–Madison’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT). The annual survey measures trends in student use of UW–Madison computing services, tracks levels of awareness and analyzes demand for new and existing services.

Newer tools and devices continue to grow in popularity for students on campus. Seventy-five percent of those responding to the survey use text messaging, for example, an increase of 10 percent from the 2007 survey. Use of smart phones (a cell phone with Internet access, such as an iPhone, BlackBerry, or Treo) has grown from 6 percent in 2007 to 12 percent in 2008. Ninety-three percent reported owning a cell phone of some kind.

Email continues to be an essential tool for almost everyone (96 percent). Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia (88 percent), and MP3 music players (78 percent), including iPods, are not far behind.

Almost all students (89 percent) now use the Learn@UW course management tool. Of those, 83 percent give it a positive or very positive rating.

Use of laptop computers is expanding (to 87 percent) as use of traditional desktop models declines (to 31 percent). In 2005, only 56 percent of students used a laptop, while 61 percent used a desktop computer.

The popularity of laptops stems in part from their portability, and students are eager to connect to the Internet using UW–Madison’s wireless network. Student access via wireless grew to 65 percent, up from 50 percent last year and 30 percent reported in 2006.

Even though students are already comfortable with technology, they are eager to learn more about it. When asked about possible training topics, their top choices were graphics and animation software (such as Photoshop, Illustrator or Flash), Web design (with products such as Dreamweaver), spreadsheets (such as Excel), and instruction on working with hardware (installing components and making repairs and upgrades).

While students are aware of computer security, only about half have installed the free antivirus software distributed by the campus. Relatively few update, or patch, their computer’s operating system, Web browser and other software. Almost half back up their computer’s data only rarely or never.

Other findings from the 2008 Student Computing Survey:

•  Other technology resources favored by students include social networks such as Facebook and MySpace (used by 74 percent), instant message and chat (65 percent), downloading music (59 percent), and Google applications such as Gmail and Docs (56 percent).
•  Satisfaction levels among students remained high, with 93 percent saying they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the technology provided by UW–Madison.
•  Mean satisfaction ratings for individual campus services (on a 1-5 scale) included 4.3 for the campus wireless network, 4.1 for WISC, the campus’s discount software program, and 4.0 for Learn@UW, the online course management system.

The annual Student Computing Survey was delivered on the Web using a random sample of 1,200 UW–Madison undergraduate, graduate, professional and special students, of whom 355 responded. The response rate was 30 percent, at a 95 percent level of confidence with a margin of error of +/- 5.18 percent.