Survey reveals campus computing trends

Computer users at UW–Madison choose Netscape for World Wide Web browsing while Microsoft products dominate traditional desktop computing, a new survey shows.

The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) conducted the computing survey to determine the extent of use of software operating systems and applications.

Web sites Online survey Faculty/staff survey

Four thousand faculty, staff and students received e-mail explaining the purpose of the survey and how to access the questionnaire on the Web. Thirty percent responded; the rate has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percent.

Among other things, the web-based survey found about eight of 10 respondents own a computer at home. The most popular computer uses are Web browsing (91 percent) and communicating (84 percent).

Other findings:

• Windows 95/98 is the most popular operating platform on campus and at home. Students (84) are more likely than faculty and staff (66) to use Win95/98 on the computers they own. Faculty and staff are almost three times more likely than students to own a Mac. On UW computers, Win95/98 continues to be the operating system of choice for computers used for faculty/staff (61). About 28 use Mac computers on campus.
• Eighty-one percent of respondents use Microsoft Word for word processing and 93 percent use Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software.
• Most respondents (94 percent) reported using Netscape Navigator browsers and 80 percent reported using Eudora e-mail software. Those applications are included in the WiscWorld suite of Internet software available through the university.
• Students are much more likely than faculty or staff to use a computer for gaming, socializing and shopping.
• The instance of using a computer for shopping increased dramatically over last year. For example, 35 percent of faculty and staff respondents to a related survey had made at least one online purchase in the past year, providing further evidence of thee-commerce phenomenon sweeping the country.

Almost all respondents regularly use a Web browser, e-mail and word processor. Faculty and staff are much more likely than students to use spreadsheets, databases and calendar software.

When asked to rank order a variety of computing purchases factors, faculty, staff and students agreed that reasonable price was most important. Reputation of product and technical support were the second and third most important factors.

In a mailed survey, DoIT also found that 75 percent of faculty and staff are satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of information technology at the university. Eighty-seven percent rate the availability of computing resources at UW–Madison as good or very good.

DoIT conducts its surveys in an ongoing effort to determine awareness and use of UW computing services, and to measure general computing behavior. Access the reports:

For the online survey: http://www.wisc.edu/doit/research/99online.html.

For the faculty/staff survey: http://www.wisc.edu/doit/research/99facstf.html