IT survey deadline extended
Rice Information Technology stated that it will probably be keeping its annual survey open for two more weeks after falling short of desired response levels. To gather feedback on the campus's technology resources and usage from undergraduate and graduate students, staff and faculty, IT has conducted this survey for almost six years and incorporated incentives to motivate more responses.Carlyn Chatfield, the manager of IT communication, said that the survey was created through Rice's Inquisite software. IT published the link through Twitter, Facebook and a Thresher ad. It also sent three or four e-mail messages to students, faculty and staff members and through college and employee mailing lists. In addition, fliers were distributed to be posted in common gathering areas.
Gary Kidney, Academic and Research Computing Director, said this was the first year IT had offered one unified survey to all groups of respondents. Chatfield stated that in previous years, IT ran separate surveys for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff. She said participation ranged from 1,435 participants in 2008 to 2,000 participants in 2010. Chatfield noted that, in previous years, students responded best if there was a chance of winning a small but popular prize. Consequently, this year, IT offered students who completed the survey the chance to win an iPod shuffle.
"We have offered iPods in the past," Chatfield explained. "When we didn't offer prizes in 2009, our undergraduate participation dropped some."
Vice Provost of Information Technology Kamran Khan said IT had several questions for students that stemmed from recent national surveys of young adults. According to him, these surveys reported three trends: more peole using the computer for networking rather than productivity, more users becoming information producers rather than just consumers and technology becoming more mobile and wireless.
Khan said IT wanted to know how and why Rice students follow current trends and whether students differ significantly from faculty and staff on these variables, and it addressed these questions in the "Digital You" section of the survey.
Khan said IT wanted at least a 25 percent student response. The results would be used to measure and assess many aspects of technology services and report IT activities to the university. According to Khan and Chatfield, results of the survey are usually analyzed by Kidney in April and reported in May. Survey results are presented to the Information Technology Advisory Committee, and a summary report is published for the campus community on the VPIT Web site. IT is then usually invited to present interesting findings to various audiences, such as the SA.
"We are looking to further enhance the services and learn about our students' tech learning habits," Khan said, "We take the survey results and feedback very seriously and plan the next 12 months accordingly."
Khan explained that IT has utilized data from past surveys to initiate improvement projects like OWL-Socrates, wireless network access across campus, upgrades to OWLNet, IT Alerts and a new interface for WebMail. Last year's survey results prompted two additional planned enhancements: a new calendar tool and the movement of student e-mails to a better storage location known as "the cloud."
Chatfield said she can't predict how feedback will be this year but urges people to respond regardless.
"Take the survey! We need to hear from you," said Chatfield.
Martel College freshman Luz Rocha said she completed the survey simply because IT sent her the e-mail.
"I just wanted to have one fewer unread message in my inbox," said Rocha.
Sid Richardson College sophomore Libby Ulman said she hadn't yet taken the IT survey but still supported IT's efforts to gather student opinions.
"I remember getting the e-mail about it and making a mental note to do it, but it completely slipped my mind," Ulman said. "But I do think that it's a really good idea that they're trying to reach out to the student body to get our input, given that technology is something we use constantly at Rice.
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