Report into Student Computer Access
A few months ago (March 09) I surveyed all the computer science students to find out about their access to computers, how much they used the University computers, whether they had access to a computer outside those provided by the department, their skills in completing basic computing tasks and whether they felt elearning/online activities would be helpful in their studies.
After a delay of far too long, I’ve finally now had chance to write up the results – I can already think of ways that the survey could have been improved – re-wording of questions etc – so it may not be wonderfully scientific, but it does give an indication of the some of the issues involved. The full report (pdf) can be downloaded, but while you’re waiting for that to download here is the summary (all comments/feedback welcome):
In March 2009 all of the students in the computer science department were asked to complete a survey
relating to their access to computers, basic computing skills and attitudes towards elearning and online
activities. 64% of students (227) responded to the survey.
The key findings from the survey were:
- 19% have access to a computer outside the computer science department
- 21% never access the internet
- 52% found access to a computer was a major problem or not possible at all
- The main access difficulties expressed include: lack of computers, computer labs not open
often enough and lack of or slow internet connection- Low levels of basic computing skills
- 84% feel that online activities would be quite or very useful additions to their studies
From these key findings a number of recommendations can be made to improve the computing
facilities for students:
- Review of the computer lab setup and configuration
- Increase in lab opening times
- Increase number of computers available
- Increase internet capacity
- Basic computer skills training
- Require courses to use the elearning system
The results from this survey can be used as a baseline for future surveys to measure the impact of
initiatives to improve student computer access (such as replacement or new computers and labs) and
whether the recommendations have had the desired effect.
It should be noted that since some of these recommendations were written (back in April), work has already begun in ordering new computers for the student computer labs and in requesting increased bandwidth from ETC.
