As a result of the UWired collaboration, questions about student and faculty uses of technology were included on the most recent survey in order to give us a useful profile of the faculty as a whole, rather than our usual peek at those who self-select to access our services. We found, for example, that over ninety percent of faculty use email to communicate with their students. Such context helps demystify technology and helps faculty see that innovating does not require the use of exotic or complicated technologies. The results of such research will likely vary from campus to campus, but one lesson from this is not just that surveys can be valuable, but that other campus units can make invaluable partners. While such aggregate data is useful, it cannot by itself convey the detailed understanding of faculty needs, expectations, and past experiences that are crucial for developing an effective system of support.
Few tactics beat simply asking faculty what they want.
As part of the Catalyst development process, UWired conducted a series of focus groups to get a better sense of what faculty in different contexts and with varying levels of technological expertise wanted. The ensuing discussion was rich, and the observations of the participants often ran counter to our latent assumptions. We found, for instance, that faculty did not like our practice of combining how-to help with pedagogical suggestions in our printed material. There is no silver bullet for supporting faculty uses of technology in teaching and learning. Those of us in this role at research universities typically find ourselves working in a highly decentralized environment with heterogeneous faculty members and rapidly changing technologies.