by Chip Denman

In my previous column (ITforUM, Fall 2000, or http://www.oit.umd.edu/ITforUM/2000/Fall/itcounts), I summarized some of the findings regarding computer ownership and use among a sample of 1389 juniors and seniors in Professional Writing courses in Spring 2000. The same survey included questions about IT skills and services. In this report, recent transfers have been excluded in order to focus only on those students who have at least three semesters of experience here at UM (N=1103, although the number of complete responses varies from item to item). For more information on the survey, contact me or the Campus Assessment Working Group (http://www.umd.edu/CAWG).

It’s no surprise that students consider access to IT to be important. It can be a challenge to satisfy their high expectations.

The students were asked to self-assess their skills relating to use of IT in terms of their comfort level when they began at UM, their comfort level at the present time, and the degree to which UM directly affected these abilities. These responses have obvious limitations. We don’t really know what they have learned. We don’t even know what they think they have learned. At best, we only know what they say they think they’ve learned. But for now, this is our best estimate of the effect of the university.

Comfort with different IT-related tasks varies considerably; consuming information in whatever form comes easier than creating it. But regardless of task, roughly twice as many students reported that they now feel comfortable, compared with when they began at UM.

These students report big gains in their skills, but how are they accomplishing this? Here we know even less, but OIT clearly plays a big role. In this group, 63% said they have made use of the Help Desk, and 72% have participated in training in the use of information technology.

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