In April 2008, the Office of Learning & Scholarly Technologies in UW Technology will be surveying UW faculty members, researchers, teaching assistants, and students about their use of learning and scholarly technologies. This is the third triennial institutional survey on this topic. The 2008 surveys focus on identifying instructional and learning goals, understanding research goals, learning how existing technologies are being used to help meet those goals, discovering the supports and obstacles to using technology, and prioritizing future needs.

In developing these surveys, UW Technology has collaborated with UW Libraries, the UW Teaching Academy, the Faculty Council of Educational Technology, UW Health Sciences, and the Office of Educational Assessment. Results from the surveys will help the University make informed decisions about where to devote time and resources, by better understanding how instructors and students use current technologies and collecting information to anticipate future technology and support needs. Complete survey results will be shared with the UW community in autumn 2008.

Focus Groups

Collaborators conducted focus groups with faculty and students. Results of those focus groups helped shape the development of three survey instruments: the Faculty Survey on Learning and Scholarly Technology, the TA Survey on Learning and Scholarly Technology, and the Student Survey on Learning and Scholarly Technology.

Key themes that emerged from the focus groups include the following:

• A general perception exists among instructors and students that the UW offers adequate technological resources, but that the wide number of available tools and the lack of standardization can be overwhelming.
• While students report using a wide range of technologies in their personal lives, they learn how to use technologies for learning (discussion boards, electronic homework, database searching, etc) in their courses.
• Faculty desire more opportunities for collegial discussions about teaching and technology, so that they can share ideas and information with their peers.
• Undergraduate students are especially sensitive to differences in quality of teaching and feel that advanced technology cannot substitute for good instruction.

Report of the 2008 Surveys

For the final report, we will note and illustrate the most significant findings and recommendations that emerge thematically from the data. Emergent themes from the first and second instantiation of this study included: student and faculty perceptions of each other’s technology uses, preferred technologies and their frequency of use, preferred methods of using technology for coursework and research, and perceived value of technology resources and support. In addition to these areas, the research design now places special emphasis on goals for teaching and learning, technology expectations to accomplish those goals, and uses of emerging technologies such as collaborative tools and portable devices. Through the results of the surveys and focus groups we are able to report both qualitative and quantitative data in great detail.

To illustrate the level of detail we have achieved in reporting on this data in the past, we include selected findings from our 2005 surveys below:

• 80% of undergraduate students would have liked the University to require course websites, while only 27% of faculty agreed.
• 63.1% undergraduates and 34.0% faculty wanted the UW to encourage instructors to accept course assignments electronically.
• 79.4% undergraduates and 72.0% faculty agreed the UW should inform students of the technologies that would be required in each course.

This autumn, we will be able to provide similar data from the 2008 surveys. The results of our research will continue to improve the match between the development of tools and services and the needs and desires of the University. The UW community can use our findings and recommendations to make informed choices about how best to use technology in the service of education.