| Report Authors: | Tor Cross,
Teaching Resources Center Vicki Suter, Information Technology |
In addition, focus sessions accompanied by application demonstrations are
also being carried out. Focus groups for the September-December
timeframe (including Think Tank sessions) are:
Faculty Survey Statistics
Comprised of undergraduate teaching faculty at the University of
California, Davis. The Academic Senate members represent the ladder
teaching faculty, the Academic Federation, Unit 18 represents the
lecturers and other non-ladder faculty. As the focus was on those
primarily responsible for undergraduate instruction, the faculty from the
Law School, the School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Management
were not included in the population. The total population consists of
1295 individuals.
With the exception of Division of Biological Sciences, and
Humanities/Arts/Cultural Studies the distribution of the respondents
across college mirrors the underlying population distribution. (For
example, DBS shows high % of "didn't log on" - see page 6, LEAD Faculty
Survey Results, but this only represents 16 individuals, and we should do
further analysis and data collection before drawing any conclusions about
DBS faculty's remote access needs.)
Use of computers for instructional related tasks, mobility of use and
remote access
Faculty are generally using at least one computer for instructional
related tasks (6.2% report using no computers for instructional related
tasks); nearly fifty percent (49.3%) of the faculty currently use a
laptop computer for instructional tasks, and over a third of these use
their laptops in the classroom. Many of the faculty regularly use more
than one computer (the median use is 3 computers), and are regularly
logging on to the central campus computers from different computers.
Therefore, any login procedure should take into account this pattern of
use. Considering the fact that nearly 90% of the faculty do at least
some of their instruction-related tasks from an off-campus location
(faculty spend an average of a third of the time that they devote to
instruction working from an off-campus location) and taking into account
initiatives to increase the use of the web to promote education, there is
every reason to expect the demand on the remote access to the campus
computing system to increase. Solutions which make working from
multiple systems and multiple locations more efficient should be given a
higher priority (e.g. efficient document sharing across systems).
Setting standards for efficient document sharing across systems for an
individual may also lay the groundwork for more efficient document
sharing across individuals in a collaborative manner.
Computing Platforms in use
Any support decisions must take into account the varied nature of the
platform use in the faculty. For desktop platforms, 61.7% use
Windows-based machines, 47.6% use Macintoshes, 17.6% use both, and 15.4%
use UNIX-based machines. Solutions which are not cross-platform must
be carefully considered as they would be unavailable to a significant
proportion of the faculty.
Use of the web and other on-line resources for instruction
The majority of faculty (65%) either already uses a course web page or
has specific plans to start using one. For these actual or anticipated
course web pages, general, static information (posting of general course
information such as the syllabus or examples) is considered the highest
priority. Of other elements rated, the ability to provide animations,
visualization and simulations was ranked next highest. Dynamic
automation or database-driven web pages are not highly rated at this
point. An important factor in this may be unfamiliarity with the full
set of features possible with the web. Continued support of the
evolution of increasingly sophisticated web pages (especially those
driven by databases) will challenge both the educators and
technologists as more faculty become interested in this format of
distributing information. More than half (52%) use Melvyl as an
instructional tool.
Faculty requirements for student use of information technology
Over half the faculty (51.5%) suggest that their students use e-mail, and
36% require that their students use e-mail as a regular part of their
courses. In over one-fifth of the classes offered by the respondents,
students are required to use electronic file distribution. The specifics
of how these files were being distributed was not investigated, however
efficient file sharing and distribution is increasingly important on this
campus. Demands are being made by the faculty that students use email
and other computer resources as regular parts of offered courses.
Efficient means of managing and archiving student emails and of coping
with shared documents should be developed. In addition, 11% of the
Faculty who answered the survey required students to use MELVYL (Catalog
and journal article databases), and 31% suggest its use.
Sources of support for faculty use of information technology
Currently, faculty find their primary source of assistance in in their
departmental or college technical support staff. This is true for
all areas of support, including the development of web pages and other
support for hardware, software, courseware and networking.
Priorities for future tool development
Over half the faculty would value productivity tools that help with
presentation and distribution of lecture material, and
record-keeping/grading. Almost half (44.5%) would value tools that aid
in student contact. Note that 20% rated student collaboration as their
first or second ranked priority; this appears concentrated in the
Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies.
Importance of technology
Two-thirds rated technology as important with regard to access to
information content in their discipline, and for student computer
literacy. Almost half (46%) rated technology as important to improving
pedagogy.
ADDITIONAL ANALYSIS NECESSARY
The following questions are being addressed using individual faculty
interviews and discussion groups (including those occuring during the
Fall Think Tank). Fifty faculty were selected for interviews (drawn from
the remainder of the population, excluding those who were selected for
receipt of the survey). Of this group, 25 interviews have been
completed.
Computing platforms in use
For those who use laptop computers, to what extent is that their primary
machine? (They use only a laptop computer). For those who don't have a
home desktop, how many have laptops? (How many don't have any home
computer)? For those who don't have a campus desktop, how many
laptops?
Use of the web for instruction
Is there a "test-drive" problem (faculty who aren't familiar with the
potential capabilities of fully-developed web pages may not be able to
evaluate the usefulness of certain features (e.g., web-database
interfaces). To what extent would a course management system aid in the
development and management of course web pages for the majority of
faculty? What other tools (web authoring, etc.) would aid in the
development and management of course web pages?
(Total of 5 focus sessions planned on course management tools, with
demonstration and discussion of 5 vendor products; 2 of these were
completed in October).
Faculty Support
Do faculty support sources correlate by department/school/college?
The LEAD team plans to work with the Technology Support Program and TSP
survey to conduct further analysis and data collection.
How important is it to UCD faculty that their graduate students be
enabled/supported to develop course web pages and other technology-based
instructional materials?(Should this training be coupled with training as
teachers?)