College students in cyberspace

From e-mailing their professors for clarification on assignments, to reducing the need for research forays to the library, to setting up virtual study groups or just to keep in touch with their friends, college students have become savvy users of the Internet.

The Pew Internet and American Life Survey (www.pewinternet.org/) shows the degree to which the Internet has saturated the lives of today's students. One-fifth of them began using computers between the ages of 5 and 8. By the time they were 16 to 18, today's college students all were using computers at home or at school.

Seventy-two percent of college students check their e-mail at least once a day. And it's a good thing: Eighty-seven percent of students have received e-mail messages from their professors. More than half of students say they can communicate their ideas more freely to their professors via the Internet.

Despite their high comfort level with the Internet, students and professors say they still prefer face-to-face communication. What's more, don't go looking for traditional students to seek out online alternatives to the classroom. The survey found that only 6 percent of traditional college students (ages 18 to 22) took online courses for college credit. Of those, only half (52 percent) found the courses worthwhile. The rest felt they had not learned as much as in a traditional class. 

Faculty settle in with technology

Another study, this one from the U.S. Department of Education, shows that faculty are getting cozier with their computers even though the technology didn't reach many of them until midway in their careers. The 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty shows that in fall 1998, about 97 percent of full-time instructional faculty and staff had access to the Internet.

Still, only 69 percent of full-time faculty and 46 percent of part-timers used e-mail to communicate with students. Forty percent of full-time faculty and 34 percent of part-timers used course-specific Web sites. Those at four-year doctoral institutions were most likely to use these tools. Both full- and part-time faculty said they spent 2.7 hours per week on average responding to student e-mails. That time added up to a workload increase, the study shows. Faculty who did not use telecommunications tools worked an average of 53 hours per week (37 hours for part-timers). Those who did use the tools worked 55 hours and 39 hours respectively.

The NSOPF:99 study on technology is entitled "Teaching with Technology: Use of Telecommunications Technology by Postsecondary Instructional Faculty and Staff in Fall 1998."  Download a copy at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002161.pdf.