Survey finds patterns in campus email, calendar use

A recent survey conducted by the Administrative Excellence Email and Calendaring Team sheds some light on the use of internal and external email and calendaring systems on campus.

The survey was answered by 3,350 faculty, academic staff and students, a response rate of about six percent of invitees.

The results show that two-thirds of employees use a UW-hosted electronic calendar. Only 11 percent of students use a UW calendar system.

Of those who don’t use a UW calendar, 45 percent of employees and 36 percent of students use an external electronic calendar, and 30 percent of employees use paper calendars as their primary platform.

Twenty-five percent of employees and 17 percent of students report that it takes more than two days to schedule and confirm a meeting or event.

The survey found that 53 percent of employees replied that they spend two hours or more each day on email, and 40 percent receive at least 40 emails per day. Meanwhile, 88 percent of students reported spending less than two hours per day on email.

One-third of students said they forward their UW email to a Gmail account, while 20 percent of employees reported forwarding their UW email.

The email and calendaring team thanks those who responded to the survey. Surveys from other work teams will be going out in upcoming weeks as they continue to gather data to make our campus more effective, efficient and flexible. 

Learn more about the email and calendaring survey results here.

Administrative Excellence is a key UW–Madison initiative to identify opportunities for our campus to become more effective, efficient and flexible.