Computing: An analysis of perceptions and experiences of a university faculty

Faculty information technology perceptions were examined regarding the adequacy of computing resources, the importance of computing resources, and instructional computing. These perceptions were analyzed relative to their relationship to selected demographic characteristics and computing experience.;This study found that although faculty don't feel highly competent in computing, they are interested in and like computing. They use computers a lot, and that usage continues to increase. Personal computers are extremely important to faculty, and they feel that they have fairly good access to them; however, they feel the university should provide better access to personal computers for students. Faculty think networking is important for both them and their students, but that university network access is too limited.;Many faculty are involved in instructional computing, and they feel that computing is relevant to each of their disciplines. Faculty feel that their work and that of their students would improve if they had better access to and support for computing and networking. Faculty would likely use computing and networking more, and be more involved in instructional computing, if appropriate rewards were structured to do so.;While relationships were found between all of the variable sets examined, some clear patterns emerged. The relationships between the computing experience and computing perceptions variables were stronger than those between the demographic and computing perceptions variables. While there was a relationship between the demographic variables and computing experience, the degree of this relationship was low. Notably, gender did not seem to be an important component of this relationship. Likewise, gender was the only demographic variable which did not contribute to the relationship between the demographic variables and the perceptions regarding instructional computing. Of the computing experience variables, computing interest seemed to be the most important with respect to the relationship between computing experience variables and computing perceptions variables.;The main implication of these findings is that closer attention should be paid to the computing experience of faculty than demographic characteristics in the incorporation of information technologies on campus.