comparison of English first and second language speakers
4.4 Access: staff
4.4.1 Staff access to technological resources
4.4.1.1 Physical access
As was explained in Chapter 2, the use of personal computers amongst staff in the region began in the late 1980s. In our pilot survey of staff we asked staff whether or not they had a computer on their desk. Feedback indicated this was a superfluous question as presence of computers at work was now a given. Therefore, instead of exploring location of work access for staff we focused on the adequacy of the computer for the teaching requirements of staff. It seemed that the hardware and software appeared to be more of an issue for staff than the presence or absence of a computer.
As with students, we were interested in the frequency of staff use on campus as this gives us some idea about how embedded the computer is in the daily work lives of staff.
Table 4.27 shows that 91% of staff use a computer daily and 77% use the Internet daily.
Given the institutional differences (outlined in Chapter 2), one needs to consider staff access in individual institutions. The figures in bold show the lowest daily uses of a computer. Staff at UWC and Stellenbosch University are the least-frequent daily users of a computer (85% and 84% respectively), whilst staff at CTech and PenTech are the least frequent daily users of the Internet (57% and
61% respectively) (Table 4.28). A possible explanation is that use of the Internet is associated with research-related activities which are less dominant at technikons (Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies 1997)7.
Of staff in the region, 94% have a computer at home. This varies slightly across institutions, where 100% of staff at Stellenbosch University indicate they have a computer at home compared to 83% at CTech (Table 4.29). Despite this range, this does mean that the vast majority of academic staff in the Western Cape have access to computers both at work and at home.
Overall, 83% of staff with computers at home also have access to the Internet from home. The variation of Internet access between staff from different institutions is quite marked. Again 100% of staff from Stellenbosch University have Internet access but this is in contrast to staff from the technikons, where as few as 51% from one of them report having Internet access at home.
The almost complete access to computers for all staff respondents across the region is particularly apparent in the visual representation (Figure 4.59). The asymmetrical image for Internet access shows that staff at three of the institutions have lesser access, these three being the two technikons and UCT.
Although we did not ask about on/off campus integration in the quantitative investigation, the open-ended questions reveal this to be a relevant consideration.
Thus staff need for seamless portability was mentioned as a concern:
Too many firewalls, limitations at all points ESPECIALLY for access to email off campus and out of campus
(CTech, Business Informatics, professor, >5 years, male, >50 English, British)
Staff mention the strategies they have developed to enable them to move smoothly between work and home:
The fact that I have bought a laptop makes taking work home more practical (putting large files onto disks is time consuming and unreliable).
(UCT, Centre for Higher Education Development, lecturer, >5 years, female,41–50, English,)
I am using my laptop after hours and jet flash to transfer data between office and home.
(UCT, Health Science, ass. professor, >5 years, male, English, 41–50,)
Table 4.27: Frequency of on campus use of computers and the Internet
Use of a computer on campus
Use of the Internet on campus
The fact that I could afford a computer myself – otherwise I would have been stuck because of work load I have to work 15/16 hours a day.
(SU, no details)
not synchronised with the PC at work; modem is way way way too slow; can’t access hard drive of my PC at work; carrying stuff back and forth
(SU, no details)
ISDN bandwidth at own cost, good hardware and software at home
(SU, Economic & Management Sciences, professor, >5 years, male,
>50, Afrikaans)
The qualitative responses also show how important issues like technological resources are for staff, as 61% of the total open-ended responses refer to issues relating to physical and infrastructural matters.
Table 4.30 provides an overview of the qualitative responses in relation to technological resources.
The frequency of references to technological resources is a stark reminder that having the basics in place is not yet taken for granted in the local context.
4.4.1.2 Practical access
In terms of practical access to the home computer, 60% of staff in the region are the primary users of their computers, 20% share the computer equally, and 20% are not primary
Table 4.28: Frequency of on campus use of computers and the Internet by institution
Institution
Use of a computer on campus Use of the Internet on campus Never or
monthly Weekly Daily
Never or
monthly Weekly Daily
CTech 0% 4% 96% 20% 23% 57%
PenTech 0% 2% 98% 7% 32% 61%
UCT 2% 5% 93% 3% 11% 85%
UWC 4% 12% 85% 4% 12% 84%
SU 0% 16% 84% 0% 16% 84%
Total 1% 8% 91% 6% 16% 77%
Table 4.29: Off-campus access to computers and the Internet at home
Institution
Computer at home Internet at home
No Yes (n) No Yes (n)
CTech 17% 83% 95 33% 66% 84
PenTech 6% 94% 49 49% 51% 45
UCT 2% 98% 161 17% 83% 159
UWC 4% 96% 113 4% 96% 113
SU 0% 100% 92 0% 100% 92
(n) 27 483 81 412
Figure 4.59: Staff home access to computers
99%
100%
94%
96%
100%
100%
83%
51%
96% 67%
CTech
PenTech
UCT SU
UWC
Computer @ home Internet @ home
users. This suggests that the picture is not quite as rosy as suggested in Figure 4.60 as access at home does not mean sole access.
Academics’ concerns are borne out in the open-ended responses, where 14% make reference to issues of time at home both positively and negatively.
time without interruption, faster line than at work for download
(PT, Health Sciences, senior lecturer, >5 years, female, 41 –50 years, English)
No time to develop teaching material after hours at home (UWC, Education, professor, >5 years, female, >50 years, English)
I choose to not be connected at home (i do need some downtime or offline time and this is how i manage technology) (SU, Information Science, lecturer, 3 -4 years, female, 26–30 years, Afrikaans and English)
In conclusion, unlike some professionals, academic staff do not work only in the office. Their commitments require flexibility in working schedules and their days are not structured around the traditional 9am – 5pm. Their workplace is increasingly virtual and their commitment to being able to work off campus is manifest in the extent to which they have invested in computers, inevitably at their own expense. This is true despite the resource intensiveness or historical wealth of the institutions in which they work.
An implication of the increasing virtuality of academics’
work is that integration between on-campus and off-campus systems, and ease of data movement become critical considerations for the smooth functioning of their working lives. This kind of integration is constrained by cost, as academics have to shoulder home-based work costs themselves. Related to this is the challenge of limited
Table 4.30: Over view of staff qualitative responses about technological access
(% freq. within category)General code
(% freq. within category:
access access (23%)
hardware general (49%) hardware, peripheral computer (36%) computer, PC, Mac additional (7%) printer, CD, scanner laptop (5%)
software general (20%) software, programs, packages
internet (53%) Internet, online
network (41%) connection, infrastructure, intranet, network, server, system
mail (10%)
connection type (10%) 24/7, after hours, ADSL, ISDN, wireless, broadband, instant, modem, dial-up The frequency of codes was
calculated in relation to the total number of responses. There were 412 responses from staff so a percentage of 61% for our construct of physical access means that 251 staff mentioned something about physical access in their qualitative responses. This is then examined to see what indicators these related to. In most answers staff mentioned more than one indicator, hence it was possible for a person’s response to occur or be counted in more than one category.
Percentages in the indicators and descriptors column refer to the number of staff who mentioned that concept and therefore do not add up to 100%. The column labelled
“general code” indicates the codes that comprised each indicator.
Figure 4.60: Staff sharing of computers at home
No,
institutional bandwidth, which some academics solve by privately purchasing broadband lines, also at their own cost.
Clearly, institutions will need to be more cognisant of the need for home/office portability in future.