Wabash is getting closer to the technological cutting edge with more computers, more cell phones, more I-pods, more gaming consoles, and many other technological enhancements.
The Student Technology Survey, conducted in late November and early December last semester, revealed this scenario. Continuing the increasing interest in technology, 631 students took part in the survey, an improvement from last year’s responses of 535.
“We have been taking this type of survey for last four years to know how students are using technology and how satisfied they are.” Brad Weaver, Director of Information Technology Services, said. “So we can plan for the technological enhancement at Wabash.”
The survey showed 96 percent of the total students have their own personal computer, which shows the increase of 4 percent from last year; among these about 70.7 percent have laptops.
“We found that the percentage of freshmen with laptops is greater than that of upperclassmen, and we expect the increase in this in the upcoming years.”
Similarly, Wabash email account is becoming increasingly popular; above 98 percent of the students check their Wabash-provided email account daily.
Regarding the satisfaction of the students with the technology at the college, 93.9 percent think computer labs are excellent or good. Similarly, 94.5 percent say they are more than satisfied with the overall technology provided by the college.
“One of the scopes of the survey was to find the important potential technology initiatives for Wabash and see if we are deprived of any technology,” Weaver said. “Last year, we increased the internet bandwidth in response to the survey,” he added.
“This year, we took the survey in fall semester, so that we can plan for the changes all this semester to be done in summer.”
“Students were given a list from which they chose five potential initiatives for Wabash in the order of importance and we ranked them after the survey was completed.”
Surprisingly, most of the students showed concerns to expand wireless network access to dorms and fraternities and get commercial software at low cost.
“Students also commented, through the survey, on various other things such as slow printers and the situation of the armory lab,” he said.
IT Services plans to carefully study the result of the survey and continue to work on the issues raised by the survey in the near future.