Surveys

The interactive database component of the Core Data Service has been updated with 2007 data from nearly 990 institutions. This year’s participants can now view and compare their survey responses with those of their colleagues, using special tools that provide on-the-fly, question-by-question individual data, graphs, and analysis, including a trend analysis chart comparing aggregated data for the past two years for all participants or any peer group(s) that have been created.

Data for fiscal year 2006-07 are now being collected for the Core Data Service (CDS) database on campus IT environments. Eligible institutions should complete the CDS survey by March 7. View the 950 institutions that participated last year.

In this 44-minute recording from the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, we'll hear from James Jokl and Michael Staman in a session entitled Net@EDU ICS Working Group Survey on Convergent Services in Higher Education.They will share results from the 2006 survey, which suggest that higher education is witnessing an evolutionary rather than revolutionary phenomenon.

In this 50-minute recording from the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, we'll hear from Kenneth Green in a session entitled The 2006 Campus Computing Survey. Green will share new data from the 2006 survey on the role of information technology in U.S. higher education. Topics include user support, campus portals, wireless networks, strategic and financial planning for IT, instructional integration of IT, campus IT standards, course management systems, Web site services, and IT security issues.

In this 35-minute recording from the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, we'll hear from David Consiglio, Pattie Orr, Carol Peddie, Patricia Schoknecht, Doug West & Andrew White in a session entitled Measuring the Soup: The MISO Survey.   They'll share the results, trends, and best practices that emerged from the 2006 survey of 19 liberal arts colleges and universities. The MISO survey measures the use and effectiveness of the services and resources of merged library and computing organizations.

This 43 minute presentation by Brian Hawkins provides coverage of the 2005 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Session entitled EDUCAUSE Core Data Service.

I'm slowly catching up with what all the cool people already know about:

• Openomy gives you free online storage organized by tag instead of directory
• Ma.gnolia may be giving del.icio.us a run for its money
• PXN8 lets you edit images online for free
• YouTube is yet another free online video locker
• Surveymonkey gives you free online survey tools
• Lulu may be the ultimate in vanity publishing (besides any webmonkey with a text editor and an FTP account, of course - or a weblog)

This 47 minute recording provides coverage of the 2005 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Session entitled The 2005 Campus Computing Survey.

The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) run an annual desktop linux survey, and the results of this years survey are out. One of the most surprising aspects was the motivation for deployments:

"It's not TCO (total cost of ownership), or security, or lack of license fees. It was 'employees requesting Linux (user demand)' and because 'my competitors have successfully deployed Linux.' "

Analysis of the report from desktoplinux.com for 2005 and 2004.

Matt P. recently posted on the issue of student feedback ratings in UK higher education, and posted a link to coverage by the Guardian newspaper. Looking at the survey results, I'm left with many questions, and hope to continue this discussion.

My first comment is that it is crucial to note that no Scottish universities participated in the survey. The survey therefore is not UK-wide and it misses out some of the country's leading institutions, that just happen to be located north of the English border. Another major gap comes from the absence of the universities of Warwick, Oxford and Cambridge.

These latter three are among Britain's most prestigious and successful (they are certainly "popular" with students, if you take a glance at admissions statistics), yet they did not participate in the survey. And this decision not to participate came not from the institutional administration but from the students themselves. At Cambridge, the student union campaigned against participation, largely on the grounds that the survey methods employed were highly invasive (including repeated unsolicited emails and personal telephone calls, including calls to mobiles).