Students and alumni satisfied with technology

Two surveys conducted by UW–Madison’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT) find both students and recent alumni quite satisfied with the information technology services the university provides.

Read the reports online.

Nearly 90 percent of students are satisfied or very satisfied with the computing resources of the university. Between February and April 1998, DoIT conducted its sixth annual student survey in an ongoing effort to determine student awareness and use of UW computing services and to gauge demand for new and existing services.

Other notable findings include:

• Ninety-two percent of students rate UW–Madison computing resources as somewhat or very available.
• Computer ownership remains steady this year at 65 percent. About 22 percent said they use a Macintosh operating system on computers they own, while 59 percent said they use Windows 95. In addition to their own computers, students tend to use those that are supplied by the university, with nearly 81 percent using campus InfoLabs.

Almost all students use a computer for academic work; 38 percent of students use a computer five or more times a week. The most popular software programs continue to be e-mail, word processing and internet tools, with about 90 percent of students using each of these.

The alumni survey found 84 percent satisfied or very satisfied with the information technology services the university provides. DoIT contacted 1,000 alumni between March and May 1998 as part of an ongoing effort to measure their satisfaction with campus computing resources.

Other findings are that 86 percent of alumni rated the quality of UW–Madison’s IT services as good or excellent. About 71 percent of alumni rated their computer skills at graduation from UW–Madison as good or excellent.

Ninety-one percent of alumni respondents said they were employed, and of these, more than three-quarters were employed in a position directly related to their area of study while at UW–Madison. While 85 percent of alumni used a computer several times a week or more while attending UW–Madison, they tended to use computers even more frequently at their positions.

Overall, 40 percent of alumni said computing skills obtained while at UW–Madison were very important to their current positions; an additional 31 percent said they were important. Additionally, the importance ratings of software skills increased rather substantially from 1997 to 1998, with word processing still rated as the most important skill relative to one’s job.

When asked what skills were most useful to them, alumni mentioned internet, word processing and programming/statistics skills.

The alumni survey was sent to those who graduated between May 1996 and December 1997. The survey margin of error is plus-or-minus 5.4 percent. Of the 1,000 students who received the student questionnaire, 481 completed and returned them. The margin of error for the student survey is plus-or-minus 4.7 percent.

Both reports can be found online at: http://www.wisc.edu/doit/research/research.html