Student Questionnaire Results, 3-98 This document is a summary of responces to an email I sent to all CA's. >I am working on a team to review the facilities avaliable to students >if during your shift or know could you please comment back to me. > >Are the facilities open to students adaquate? > >Do the tables and chairs work vs benches as in academic buildings? > >Should there be application documentation in the work areas? > >What other issues need to be addressed? > >When I have the report compiled I will share a copy with you. >Thanks for your time. > >John Campion Comments where compiled by my staff. Are the facilities open to students adaquate? The Gateway 2000 Penitums are a great addition: 3 "The Gateway 2000 Pentium 233 MMX systems are a huge jump in the overall computing power in the dorms. These machines are fast and effective, with very few crashes or other problems." There is demand for laser printers in each dorm: 7 "Although it is possible to hook up to networked printers, such as RM115 Laser Public, this option is not well understood or practiced. I know many people who have said they would make use of a laser printer in their dorms, a quick survey could probably support this. Maybe there is a way to fund something like this jointly, having the dorms pick up a certain percent of the costs involved. The admin would probably like this too, because then they could mention something in the St. Olaf Handbook like: 'Each of our dorms is equipped with a laser printer in addition to the excellent public computer labs.'" "I realize there may not be enough money to add new laser printers to each lab. However, if a system was developed for charging ten cents per page I would have to believe that inkjet printers could at least be added. It is a great inconvenience for many lab users to pick up their papers in Holland. I have talked to many of the people in the lab who have expressed a willingness to pay for their printing if they had the convenience of doing so in the lab." No, Facilities are not up-to-date: 4 "No! The computers are 8 years or more out of date. There are even 386s still in use! This is silly. In 1988, the computers were only 4 years out of date, and now they are 8 years? The current ones barily run the operating systems on them, much less Word or a browser. For the students that just use the network to check their email, I say use the old 386s as small relay servers and hook up the old H29s to them." "Some dorms are really pretty bad. Mellby has 6 IIsi's and an imagewriter. Hill-Kitt has similarly old computers and doesn't even have an imagewriter. It has a non-networked Epson LX-810 plugged into one of the two PC's in the lab. Therefore, printing is not possible in that lab unless you're using one of the PC's, and even then you have to make sure you're at the one connected to the printer or change the connection." Students are frustrated with the Macs in the dorm labs: 3 "It would be nice to have better macs in the dorms. I run across many students that don't trust using the dorm computers to type papers because the macs tend to freeze up, although I haven't heard any complaints about the PC's." Facilities are the right size for the amount of use, but there is not an excess: 1 Facilities are fine: 3 Do the tables and chairs work vs benches as in academic buildings? The chairs and tables work well: 5 "The chairs work well, I haven't encountered a single problem with them." No, the chairs and tables are not adequate in Larson: 3 "It would be nice to have an extra chair or two in the Larson computing labs. This way, the CA has a chair to sit on without sitting at a computer when their not using one. Many people also complain about computers being in carrels on the 8th floor in Larson. there is little space to move the mouse and the keyboard is at a funny angle which makes it a little uncomfortable to type." "In some places, such as the Den and Holland 407, the benches are too shallow and typing is uncomfortable." Should there be application documentation in the work areas? Yes: 4 "People tend to avoid reading the manual whenever possible. But what if we made some posters with "Quick Start Guide" type of information on them? It would probably be possible to explain the majority of pertinent information in a relatively small poster area, with lots of screen shots. If we had a library of manuals for Word, Excel, and the like on a table in the computer labs, people could refer to it and maybe they would even read them." "Yes! Maybe mounted in one of those old giant binders that were used for UNIX docs. Maybe also having the Word/Excel/etc. books for checkout at the front desks would help as well." "I think application information is necessary at the beginning of the year, but not necessarily during second semester." No: 5 "I don't think putting documentation in the labs is a good idea, they'd probably get ripped up or taken, maybe a sign listing a website with the documentation , but that's it." What other issues need to be addressed? Resource Room Hours- More access to students: 2 "I have had to turn away people from using the Resource Room when they have needed its unique resources for legitamate academic and co-curricular projects. Although I understand the need to treat such high level equipment with respect and caution, I have also heard many complaints about students not having access to the equipment. It's not easy to explain to students that although they have paid for top-of-the line desktop publishing and graphics programs, such facilities are for use of faculty and staff only. There are some lesser alternatives around campus, such as the scanner and mid-level computer in the Helpdesk, but these are not always adequate for some of the projects student want to complete. The way students obtain access to it is through the use of a sign-up sheet. The Resource Room needs a similar process, for students. It needs to be publically advertised for availablilty and then there needs to be a way students can gain access to time slots for using it. That way for all students with computer needs of Resource Room level would have a way of fulfilling them short of asking for the purchase of a new public Resource Room." More hours in the high level labs. "One other idea that would be useful would be to generate more computing hours available. I was talking with Prof. Roberr Hanson about the Chemistry Department's High level lab. Presently, that lab is locked up around 5 PM and all of weekends. He was thinking that many more available computer hours would be generated if a student worker were to maintain the lab for a few hours each night, since that would free upwards of twenty workstation-hours per hour of student work. This would probably be managed inside the Chemistry Department, but perhaps this idea could be applied to other areas as well. I thought I would suggest it." Computing Assistants "One other recommendation that I have is the use of a board in each lab. For example, putting a board up on the wall, maybe 2' by 3' of who is on duty each evening. The use of velcro and laminated id tags would make the names easy enough to change. The folders we have now do not catch the eye of the casual lab user, who is the one who may likey encounter computing problems. Furthermore, by writing COMPUTING ASSISTANT across the top - not CA - it would aid in the realization that these people are around to help. Plus, many people I have talked to did not know what CA's were. A board with the CA hours, who is on duty, as well as the job description would greatly help educate the lab users of the CA's existence as well as resposibilities, especially for freshman. This is the main problem I see, the people simply are not educated. A large board with bright colors would catch people's eyes and hopefully make everything run a lot smoother as well as alleviate a lot of frustration by lab users." "You need to reduce costs while improving service. Idea: Reduce the "CA on Duty" hours to 7-9, then have on call CAs from 3-5 and 5-7. These CAs wouldn't get paid (except for maybe some minimal amount) unless someone calls them. Then the CAs would be happy because they could sit in their rooms, and the customer (the students) would be happy because there would be help available from 3-7, which is when we get most of the problems anyway. I have actually received complaints that we waited until 7:00 to assist someone." Email "The introduction of Mars was very popular because e-mail have become REALLY slow lately, taking as long as 3 or 4 minutes just to log in and then waiting another minute or two at the end just to press control d and logout. When mars was introduced it was speedy and lars even got quicker. The students really apprieciated this added option." "Most students that i have run across that need to print an email message do not know how to properly print it. This seems to have become especially common since the new pine system was introduced. This girl tonight was trying to print out an email from her professor that was about 10 pages long. She didn't know how to print it so she printed every individual screen which really held up the line to the printer as well as make her printed message 25 pages long instead of 10. Also, between every page of printed paper, there were about 9-10 blank sheets. Cutting and pasting onto Word works well for short messages, but when the messages are long, it is really inconvenient. The easiest route would be to teach students how to use the attach-to-ansi option on the printer setup. On the old system of pine, this option was already chosen when we got our accounts, but now no option is picked and people are running into problems similar to this. Maybe it can be taught during Week One. If students have to pay for copies next year, they'll want to know this stuff and if there's no charge you'll want them to know so you can save paper." Workshops "Are the student workshops attended well because I think that offering some in the middle of the year/semester would be really helpful. They could focus on email, WWW, St. Olaf servers, etc."