Information Technology Services User Satisfaction Survey 2009
Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
Open Text Responses (Edited)
Indiana University Center for Survey Research
This text file includes responses to the final questions of the UITS survey: Are there any additional comments you would like to make about University Information Technology Services?
Identifying references have been removed from this document and replaced with [IRD]. Case IDs have also been removed from this document. Responses are grouped by sample: Faculty, Staff, Graduate Students, and Undergraduate students.
Faculty
Improve Oncourse and increase size of mailboxes for faculty.
Do not give UITS control of all tech fees - they do not do a good job as it is. I'm quite happy with the technology in my school and how my school handles it's technology. Those services brought to us by system wide UITS folks, like Oncourse, are terrible. DO NOT tune out faculty as UITS has consistently done when making its idiotic decisions. Every piece of technology on this campus exsists to benefit the students - most particularly to provide faculty with the technology needed to best serve their students. Let the schools handle it as they listen to the faculty - UITS does not.
I am concerned with the lack of customer service orientation that permeates UITS. The support of OnCourse CL has been particularly problematic, but administration did not appear to be receptive to listening to faculty concerns until the platform basically collapsed. This lack of willingness to listen to the consumers' concerns is a serious concern
The adaptability and speed with which improvements are made to Oncourse CL are still abysmal.
For a tool that serves the entire 8 campuses and over 100,000 students, ONCOURSE CL is pathetic. We hear reports that people are happy with ONCOURSE that's because professors have simply given up on it and resort to other means.
Nearly all of my computer support is provided at the unit level.
You meet my needs. I know there is more I can use and apprecitae the confidence your availability brings to my work.
Some technicians are very knowledgeable and helpful and others are not. [IRD] in the Dental School is very helpful, respectful and when I ask him to help the job get done right. [IRD] is also someone who is very helpful and does not make you feel like a "dummy" for asking a question.
Phone voice mail system has been changed to a worse one!
Thanks very much!
It's ironic that my profession is 100% dependent on IT, but I receive almost no IT support.
People keep thinking that my office phone is a FAX machine. There has got to be a way to determine who is sending FAXes to my phone. Also, I get frequent calls from ATT or other sales agents asking to talk to the "person that makes business decisions in your office." I run a lab! How are these people getting my phone number and how can we block them. UITS had no solution to these problems when I asked!
Since I am a physician and work with Clarian, the IU Clarian interface needs to work better. Need more computer software people to help make things works smoother. We hear too much of this is Clarians problme, , from IU and the opposite from the other side. I am a physician and have to depend on IT for computer support. Please resolve. We are in the 21st century and we have to have electronic medical records. We need resolution. HIPAA is in place to protect patients not to make it difficult for doctors to care for patients. We cannot lose site of the ultimate goal. Let us resolve to make our campus 100% electronic from a meddical standpoint and a leader in the field.
would like increased storage capacity on my email account
Oncourse needs continued faculty input for usability. UITS personnel are located too far away from most buildings to provide adequate service to classroom computer usage. Many calls in the past have brought people to work on problems after the class is over. This is an inadequate response time.
When a phone call is made to the service center, the operator is more concerned in the fac that they ahve paperwork to complete because of the call than necessarily listening to the caller. Paperwork before problem solvoing.
My biggest frustration is the changing of services and page design. One example was the switch to Vista in classrooms without informing faculty. I had not seen Vista before and was forced to figure it out while trying to access material online. I also don't have time to repeatedly relearn navigation on web pages. With regards to IU search, I find the system very inefficient when I am trying to locate a topic on the IUPUI website and my search results in newspaper articles and teh like rather than a link that directs me to a particular IUPUI page.
No. I have no real complaints.
It is essential that UITS do not become a monopoly at IU. Taking over existing tech service structures in the schools will lead to catastrophic disaster. Do not replace people who know the institution they serve well with incompetent technocrats who will have no idea of nor appreciation for the complex academic world they'll be serving. UITS should not become a massive technocracy, as it is on the verge of becoming most unfortunately. UITS should be completely and genuinely user-centric, and never force anything against faculty will. That includes not invading the schools by administrative fiat. If you want to be efficient, make sure we love you.
Our office receives a mis-directed call from the campus operator(s) at least once a day - the operators either need better training or simply to LISTEN to what the caller is asking before they transfer the call. The staff in our office is spending entirely too much time transferring callers to the appropriate department/school/office/building etc! It's irritating to us, and even more irritating to the caller.
Schools and campuses should retain considerable control over the funds collected from student technology fees. Centralization of control will lead to loss of flexibility. Decision-makers who are unfamiliar with local needs and conditions will make bad choices.
I am concerned that the proposal to centralize the computing services (student labs, etc.) supported by the tech fees will destroy an excellent system, at least in the School of Liberal Arts. The system now functions perfectly, so the best we can hope for is minimal loss of service; there is NO chance for improvement!
Allow more individual control of software use -- although this may be a school by school issue.
increase IUPUI email account quota
increase email account quota in Oncourse
improve the grading system in Oncourse
In my opinion the single largest issue facing technology on this campus entails the ability of OncourseCL (or any other iteration of Oncourse) to host our courses. Its deficiencies are vast in light of our present course delivery needs. Today we need an environment that will support large media files, provide opportunities for simultaneous communication without transmission delays and allow for flexbility in course design. These are just a few of the issues many users have with Oncourse. Those of us who have had the opportunity to use other environments, such as, Epsilon, wonder why our present system remains so antiquated.
Need to fix Oncourse. It is still grossly inferior to the previous version, although a few functions have improved
You have labeled the library online catalog in one question incorrectly: "Library online catalog (INDYCAT/IUCAT)"
INDYCAT is obsolete and has not been in use for over 8 years. IUCAT is the only online library catalog in use in the IU System.
largely my 'discontent' is centered on the fees that are assessed, and the general way that UITS functions. We have hired people to assist us with course-specific needs because UITS cannot provide course-level support (even for very large gateway courses). The services are generally excellent, if you can get them (and if you can pay for them). However, they are not terribly accessible.
Please leave school specific IT support structures in tact. Thank you.
I appreciate the self-study guides for software and Oncourse. However, they are often difficult to locate. In particular the Center for Teaching & Learning Website has become more confusing over the past year.
None
Faculty that use the compute as their primary research tool really should have more administrative access. We are often crippled by the lack of this.
I have had fantastic service from [IRD].
No complaints, except Oncourse CL. It has been unstable, and the problems are random. Functionality is also lower in many ways - for example, when I create an announcement, I would like to be able to duplicate it over several classes. I often teach five classes at a time, and this is a burden.
Dump Oncourse!! It was clearly designed by someone who had almost no grasp on the realities of life for academics. While something like Oncourse is essential, as currently designed it is almost more work than it is worth, and is almost entirely counter-intuitive. Also includes multiple functions in which I have no interest. All I use it for is posting syllabi, grades, and announcements.
Please improve the OnCourse: performance, navigation, and features (i.e. checking new messages and responding to student, and grading assignments, etc).
UITS has a public image problem. While doing a great deal to keep that campus technologically up to date, it also has pretty poor interactions with its customers. For example, when UITS pulled all the computer labs in Cavanaugh Hall and University College, it put a great strain on faculty--especially faculty working with incoming freshmen. The questions in this survey speak to what is largely behind-the-scenes work done by UITS, but the purpose of all that work is to facilitate the work of the campus, a good portion of which relates to students. UITS would do well to hire a genial public figure to represent it.
There are some really great, knowledgeable and helpful people at UITS. Wish everyone was.
Lots of problems with Oncourse--are you listing?
I always find it difficult to navigate Onestart.
Everytime I try and do something innovative in my class. UITS always throws up roadblocks. Classic IT CYA logic.
I'm disappointed that Helpnet is being replaced by uits. Helpnet people are far more helpful than uits.
Center for Teaching and Learning Services have been very helpful
OnCourse leaves a lot to be desired!
I find one start difficult to navigate (i.e., find the services I want/need). IU Search is not helpful in finding information i need.
IT support across academic units is quite uneven. Many units are relying on students rather than professional staff to provide primary support/trouble shooting. The students are good but they are used in place of having professionals with developed expertise and commitment to the job and so are not able to offer the expert and friendly advice that one has access to in, for example, the CTL.
Thank you for all of your hard work.
I disabled the spam filter because it was directing many important emails to the spam folder. Here is what I said at the time:
[IRD]
Dear ECE colleagues,
I had become pretty slack about checking the contents of
my junk mail folder on exchange but I was shocked to find three
really important emails were in my junk folder yesterday. One
was a request for a conference paper revision with a one
week deadline. Another was an invoice from a company that
we bought software from and another was a price quote on
manufacturing some circuit boards. It is possible to disable
spam filtering by changing options in the exchange web
interface. In case you are not conscientiously checking your
junk folder, I recommend you consider either doing so or
disabling the spam filter. thanks, [IRD]
Before making changes that afffect classroom work, ITS needs to consult faculty with enough time for research and consultation with possible changes taking place. You do not work in a vacuum. This is an academic institution first and foremost.
I teach [IRD] at Herron and it seems ridiculous that we don't have wireless internet access throughout the building. Our students and faculty desperately need this service and the areas in the building where this functions does not include our classroom, meeting and office areas.
Although I have generally been satisfied, most of less tech-savvy have not been. In faculty meetings, Oncourse-CL failures (both availability and missing functionality) are mentioned regularly.
There has also been heavy criticism about support of classroom technology. There have apparently been quite a few problems during the initial weeks of class with slow/inadequate resolution.
I have heard of some plan to take technology fees and use it to create more computer clusters. BAD IDEA! make the whole campus a wireless hot spot, everyone has laptops these days. Let individual schools figure out how tech fees can best serve their own populations.
recc advertising your mult. services as listed
[IRD]
Support for Mac computers needs to be improved since Macs are now an increasing proportion of all computers sold in US. Windows Vista is NOT stable!!!
More short courses on major software packages (e.g. spss, photoshop, etc). Your photoshop courses are good.
To make wider the possibilities to use other libraries database.
I am an IU employee in a Clarian building on the medical center campus, so certain equipment is handled by Clarian not IU. Sorry I wasn't able to participate more fully!