UD participates in national survey of university computing
Each spring since 2005, University of Delaware students have joined over 25,000 students from more than 100 other US colleges and universities to participate in the ECAR (EDUCAUSE Center for Advanced Research) study of undergraduate students' use of information technology. ECAR is a research unit of EDUCAUSE, a professional association whose mission is to promote efficient use of IT in higher education.
The study provides a glimpse into students’ perceptions of how technology affects their college experience, and, therefore, helps university and college administrators learn about undergraduates’ behaviors, preferences for IT, and satisfaction with IT in the college environment.
UD student responses are generally similar to those of respondents from other 4-year institutions, with a few notable differences:
- UD students are more likely to have used a learning management system such as Sakai@UD; and
- UD students prefer emergency notification via text-messaging rather than by other means (e.g., e-mail, v-mail, etc.).
About 400 UD freshmen and seniors took the survey during the spring 2009 semester. Their responses indicated that
- nearly all owned laptops (95%);
- fewer than half felt that University classes prepared them for IT work in the job market by the time they graduate (43%); and
- nearly two-thirds described their IT experience as positive or very positive.
Students spend a substantial amount of time engaged in online activities. The UD respondents said they were, on average, online more than 3-hours daily.
Summaries of the UD results and national results are available at /it_static/reports/ecar2009.
