Undergraduate IT Perspectives

2019-2020

Catherine McMillan (AA), Sanya Kochhar (DSG Cabinet), Shrey Majmudar (AA)

Link to Detailed Qualtrics Report:

http://bit.ly/2020ITAC

Survey Goals

• Survey a large, representative portion of the undergraduate student body
• Identify aspects of IT that can be improved upon
• Gauge ongoing success of newer IT initiatives
• Pinpoint new areas of focus for OIT, DLI, and/or other departments to explore
• Provide crucial undergraduate student data to ITAC and relevant IT leaders

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Data Collection

• Survey was released on Tuesday, January 21 (2 weeks to complete)
• Note: One less week in comparison to last year
• Three $25.00 Amazon gift cards provided to random participants with DSG funding
• Advertised through DSG President’s Student Body email blast and all four Class Facebook groups
• Potential bias in higher “friend response rate” and more dissatisfied student respondents (voluntary response bias)

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Demographics – Class

• (Last Year’s Total = 255)
• Total Students = 232
• First Years: 87
• Sophomores: 57
• Juniors: 36
• Seniors: 52

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Demographics – Location

• All housing locations represented
• High percentage of East respondents,�as usual
• Breakdown of Numbers:
• East Campus – 94
• West Campus – 119
• Swift Apartments – 14

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Demographics – Area of Study

Top 10 Majors / Primary Areas of Study Represented in Survey:

1. Biology (12.93%) – 30 students
2. Computer Science (11.21%) – 26 students
3. Electrical and Computer Engineering (6.90%) – 16 students
4. Economics (8.19%) – 19 students
5. Public Policy Studies (6.03%) – 14 students
6. Mechanical Engineering (5.60%) – 13 students
7. Biomedical Engineering (5.17%) – 12 students
8. Psychology (4.74%) – 11 students
9. Neuroscience (4.31%) – 10 students
10. Program II ⇒ a.k.a. self-designed degree (3.88%) – 9 students

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Operating Systems Used

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Preferred Internet Browser

3 “Other” Responses:�Brave (x2) and Windows Explorer

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Academics

Sakai, DukeHub, Mail, Box, Duke Mobile, ePrint, Transloc, and Others

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Mail – Rate User Experience

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Email – Student Frustrations

• Emails from Sakai and professors being sent to spam
• Email automatically logs out even if tab is left open
• Requires manual input of netID and password even though they have it saved

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• “On my computer, it’s a mess and because it consistently signs me out I can never keep it as a saved tab. It’s frustrating, too, not to have a comprehensive mail sorting function like in Google.”
• “Change Duke email to Gmail lol”
• “Can we switch to google”

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DukeHub – Rate User Experience

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DukeHub – Rate User Experience

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DukeHub – Comments and Key Takeaways

• “Financial Aid and Bursar tabs being combined/integrated in some fashion. Can be confusing to remember what is in which tab.”
• “Financial aid page could include more of a breakdown of how exactly my aid is applied.”
• “The What If report is not always correct.”
• “Course evals are nonspecific and ask lots of irrelevant questions”
• “DukeHub 2.0 is dope”
• “DukeHub is like 9 different user interfaces from 2003 in a trench coat.”

• Improve What If and advisement reports – accuracy and formatting
• Excitement for DukeHub 2.0
• Financial aid and Bursar tabs should be integrated and provide information more intelligently
• Course evals should have better structured questions and answer choices on a scale

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DukeHub – Course Evaluation Process

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DukeHub – Class Search Process

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Sakai – Rate User Experience

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Students’ Thoughts: Faculty don’t use it well, Syllabus Upload (*current DSG project), usability with multiple tabs, consistency, “better than DukeHub”

Sakai – Key Comments / Themes

• “more consistency in professors' use” “Having Professors use it more” “Not all professors use it”
• “We need consistency in faculty members using Sakai, and using ALL of the features. There are SO many classes I've been in when Professors don't use the Gradebook function, and so I don't know my grade until it pops up in DukeHub.”
• “Should be able to download all resources in a .zip”
• “the grade book is not ever used”
• “Professors actually importing grades.”
• “Professors NEVER put the syllabus in the syllabus tab! I don't understand why.”
• “Better mobile site (more difficult to navigate on phone), allowing notifications for inputted grades/new resources”
• “Honestly, I have professors who don't even use Sakai due to a strong dislike of it. The user interface leaves much to be desired.”

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Box – Rate User Experience

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Students’ Thoughts: “I hate OneDrive and Box. They are both simply terrible!” — “With DukeBox giving both the teachers and students a little crash course would be wonderful since it's not intuitive to begin with but also everyone uses it to different degrees/in different ways.”

Duke Mobile – Rate User Experience

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Students’ Thoughts: “Mobile app ...just has links to webpages.” — “The duke mobile app when clicking on things just takes you to the internet, so i could have just looked it up online.” — “DukeMobile just seems useless sometimes. The campus map is slow to load” — “Duke mobile app always crashes” — “Duke Mobile needs to be redesigned to actually be effective. It is all hyperlinks”

ePrint – Rate User Experience

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Students’ Thoughts: “Eprint is very slow with some kinds of files.” — “ePrint's network infrastructure struggles to handle PDF files from OneNote containing homework assignments. It takes almost 10 minutes to print a 10-20 page OneNote PDF.” — “I have often had issues with ePrint where the printer takes far too long to process a file and print it”

Mobile ePrint – Rate User Experience

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Students’ Thoughts: “Mobile ePrint needs to be made available on Android devices.” — “Mobile ePrint is difficult to set up and then use. It is hard to send the pdfs to the app to then be printed and it takes a while to be sent.” — “Mobile ePrint is fantastic though.” — “I have had trouble using and setting up mobile ePrint.”

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Transloc/Rider

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Students’ Thoughts: “Update rider so all buses are constantly tracked. Very frustrating when they aren’t.” — “Rider is the WORST. It is never accurate and says “no prediction” half the time. If Rider was efficient it would be a wonderful app, but it doesn’t work at all.” — “Rider needs to be more accurate. This is especially frustrating living in swift. Oftentimes it will day a bus is 2 minutes away and then a couple seconds later say no prediction and then a bus won’t come for a long time. I’ve been late to classes before because of rider” — “TRANSLOC RIDER DOESN'T WORK.”

Others — Not Used As Much

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Students’ Thoughts: “25Live SUCKS. It’s not navigable” — “TV Boxes are always unreliable, and the remotes never have batteries - the boxes themselves should always have accessible buttons so in the event that a remote isn't present, we can still watch TV (stop putting TVs in cages).” — “Sometimes the remotes for the TVs in dorms are missing and it's really annoying.”

IT

Wi-Fi, Cellular, Mobile DukeCard, Duke Software, and Cybersecurity

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Wi-Fi – Rate User Experience

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Wi-Fi – Rate User Experience

• Main Concerns: Outdoor connectivity, frequent dropping, want WiFi on buses if possible
• Selected Comments: “Duke Blue drops in and out ALL THE TIME”; “outdoor connectivity poor, even in places like the quad, lots of dead zones”; “WiFi is extremely not dependable here. I am lucky enough to have data so I try to use that when on my phone, but it is frustrating on the laptop.”

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Cellular – Rate User Experience

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Cellular – Improve User Experience

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• Top Comments: T-Mobile, Good & N/A, Dropped calls
• Locations: 300 Swift, Bus, Campus Drive, Certain buildings on West main quad, Science Dr.

Mobile Duke Card – Rate User Experience & Improve User Experience

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• Top Comments: Absolutely love, Add to all campus (vending, laundry, mail, swipe readers), Replace actual card, N/A, Android equivalent, “Try again” to add to wallet glitch, apple watch only works for some dorms
• Card reader Location: Sometimes glitches at Wilson

Duke Licensed Software – Number of Users & Improve User Experience

Top Comments:

• Education on software &

advertising

• Licensed copy after graduation
• Download interface cumbersome
• Expensive (Maple)
• More engineering software
• Creative Cloud Workshop

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Cyber Security – Rate Priority

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Cyber Security – Methods of Protection

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Services and Misc.

New Software, Smart Dorm Devices, Online Platforms, IT Help, Frustrations + Improvements

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3

Duke Outlook Mail vs Gmail

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Slack Use

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As a student, do you use Slack for anything Duke related (a class, student organization, or otherwise)?

Smart Devices in Home

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Do you have any smart home devices in your dorm room (Google Home, Alexa, smart lights, etc.)

Smart Devices in Dorm Rooms

Representative Comments:

• “Rather difficult to set up the Google Home on the Duke Network.”
• “Absolutely hellacious”
• “I still can't get the dang things set up. I'm going to try going to OIT, but long story short there is no 2.4 GHz network available so I've been trying to make my own with a Raspberry Pi.”

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Online Platform Use

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Online Platform Use

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Where Do You Seek Help for IT Resources?

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“What is the most frustrating aspect of your experience with IT services? Is there anything else IT related on campus that could be improved?”

• “Honestly, y'all are doing a great job, the most response to feedback duke department there is, and being one of the first on the web to implement tech like WebAuthn through Duke Unlock is great”
• “Microsoft Suite (and outlook specifically) is by far the most frustrating thing about IT at Duke. I would love an option to switch to Google.” — “Please move to Google Drive – I loved the suggestion earlier in the survey. That would be the biggest improvement, along with addressing concerns about Transloc/Rider and WiFi.”
• “T-Mobile is very bad on campus.” — “T-mobile service”
• “TransLoc Rider” — “Transloc Rider – it is rarely accurate :/” — “Rider app”
• “The most frustrating IT issue is WiFi connectivity or the lack thereof.” — “The most frustrating thing is when the DukeBlue wifi does not work” — “WIFI!!! It's not reliable.”

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Final Takeaways

We’re boiling it down for y’all this year!

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Takeaways + Concrete Improvements

• Students want improvements to Rider immediately – biggest complaint by the numbers
• Level the playing field for faculty use of Sakai (policy issue from Provost’s office, perhaps)
• Lot of dissatisfaction with DukeHub Class Search, but it is being changed. Work needs to be done on the Course Evaluation front, though (current DSG Project actually)
• Widespread discontent with the DukeMobile app as it stands – need to maximize utilizability
• Continued confusion when it comes to Box and/or OneDrive
• Wide range of time it takes for ePrint to process
• Mobile ePrint needs to be advertised even more!
• Lot more comments about TV Boxes than we expected – make them more resident friendly
• Massive issues with WiFi dropping or being slow to connect when computer wakes up
• Continued discontent with T-Mobile, similar to last year
• People LOVE Mobile DukeCard!!!
• Room for growth in Cybersecurity, though OIT rocks in education perspective already
• Strong “one-way” preference for GSuite over Outlook, as we have discussed many times
• OIT should seriously and swiftly examine Slack licensing, as it is very widely used
• Need to improve the process of setting up smart home devices on Duke WiFi (Google Home!)

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N.B. — The following slide was added in exclusively for the DSG Senate Presentation

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“

Undergraduates Really Dislike Transloc / Rider!

1. “TransLoc often doesn't have information when most needed.”
2. “If [only] TransLoc worked.”
3. “Transloc never works right”
4. “TransLoc needs to properly update with the current state of buses.”
5. “don't even get me started on TransLoc/Rider…”
6. “Update rider so all buses are constantly tracked. Very frustrating when they aren’t.”
7. “Rider is the WORST. It is never accurate and says “no prediction” half the time. If Rider was efficient it would be a wonderful app, but it doesn’t work at all.”
8. “Transloc never works right”
9. “The Rider app says no service most of the time for the C3. It is overall very unreliable for the C3. Also it show times such as ~1 minute when it comes to east campus and changes to "OUT OF SERVICE". It would be nice if a bus that will come to campus and immediately go out of service could be indicated somehow on Rider.”
10. “Rider needs to be more accurate. This is especially frustrating living in swift. Oftentimes it will day a bus is 2 minutes away and then a couple seconds later say no prediction and then a bus won’t come for a long time. I’ve been late to classes before because of rider”
11. “Rider absolutely needs to show the swift express at all times”
12. “Rider is perhaps the most unreliable bus app in existence.”
13. “TRANSLOC RIDER DOESN'T WORK. It simply doesn't accurately gauge bus etas or live bus locations. If they could work, catching a c3 could become less unpredictable than the weather.”
14. “Actual accuracy on Transloc…”
15. “TransLoc is not reliable with information and times.”
16. “I think they are good but maybe rider should show the buses as sometimes it says none are running when obviously some are running”
17. “I would appreciate if transloc was actually accurate.”
18. “Rider could be more accurate and reliable.”
19. “I wish Rider was more accurate and REALLY wish there was an Apple Watch companion app so that it tells you the estimated time for a given bus to a certain bus stop.”
20. “It would be nice if the rider app was more accurate, but it's not that important.”
21. “Rider should just have the bus schedules instead of posting inaccurate arrival times.”
22. “Better accuracy of bus times with Rider”
23. “Transloc needs to be more accurate and track EVERY bus. Duke Virtual machines are hard to connect to when the wifi is down.”
24. “Rider is very inaccurate and the Swift Express often doesn't show up on there when it's en route”
25. “Rider needs to be improved to ALWAYS show where buses are at. Currently the buses could be right in front of you and say out of service on the app, which is extremely inconvenient, even more so when the bus hardly passes by Swift.”
26. “TransLoc often does not show buses/is unable to connect, even if I am on wifi”
27. “Rider often does not have bus information loaded.”
28. “Rider should continue to be accurate on the weekends. It rarely ever is”
29. “Transloc Rider is often inaccurate. ********Please add countdown clocks to the exterior of buses for while they're at the (east and west) bus stops so we know how long before they leave.***** Sometimes we run to the bus because we think it's leaving in a few seconds, but then it sits there for several more minutes (I have seen people getting injured while trying to run to catch the bus). Other times, people take their time getting to the bus because they think the bus will be there for a while longer, but the bus driver ends up getting annoyed because they are trying to leave. Adding a visual countdown (or at least a flashing light for the last 30 seconds) can immensely prevent injuries, and reduce stress for both students and bus drivers.”
30. “Rider needs to be more accurate”
31. “Rider can be so inaccurate’
32. “Rider is never really accurate for me, especially when I don't have my cellular data turned on. I only really turn to it when I'm desperate and have been wondering where the bus is for a while.”
33. “Rider is unreliable and never gives the right predictions and doesn't have predictions a lot of the time, but improvements may not be as necessary with the removal of central campus and many of the routes.”
34. “TransLoc is incredibly inconsistent. I live off-campus but take the swift bus to class. The rider app is often completely wrong about the timing.”
35. “Ride isn't always accurate.“
36. “Location accuracy of buses on rider can be improved.”
37. “Rider is never accurate with what buses are running and when they approach the stops. Please fix!!”
38. “make transloc more reliable”
39. “Rider is very inaccurate”
40. “Rider rarely has correct wait times.”
41. “Rider could actually show the buses when they're running every day. Multiple times every week the Swift Shuttle doesn't show up at all on the app.”
42. “Rider is highly inaccurate. GPS needs to improve with the buses and perhaps add a notification feature when a bus is approaching.”
43. “When I was a freshman, Transloc worked fantastically - it tracked buses accurately and if I missed a bus or was ridiculously early to the bus stop, that was on me. This was true for the C1, for the LL I used during the summer, the C3, CCX, you name it. I don't know what's changed in the last 1.5 years but this has decidedly NOT been the case my junior and senior years. I currently live off-campus (not an option in this form!) and Transloc has NEVER been accurate for the LL. I have always relied on the bus schedule that is posted online; even if the app works and I can see the bus, it always disappears after <30 seconds. At least eight to nine times out of ten, the app tells me that there is "no prediction" even though I know the bus is running. I know that this is an issue with Duke, because the Durham buses (e.g. the 11 bus that also travels down Lasalle) are tracked accurately by Transloc. I am not the first to report problems with Transloc and until this issue is fixed I certainly will not be the last. If the app worked once, it shouldn't be difficult to fix it, especially not after students have brought this issue up on Fix My Campus and in other forums multiple times.”
44. “Make Transloc more accurate!!!!! Track the buses better and make it more clear when busses will or wont be running”
45. “The Rider app is always inaccurate as to when buses are coming and going, and half the time says "no prediction". It needs to be much more reliable in order to be useful to students.”
46. “Rider is rarely accurate.”
47. “Transloc also fails to show every bus running most of the time, namely the C3.”
48. “I would like Rider to be more accurate about bus arrivals”
49. “Make rider more accurate”
50. “Transloc is so unbearably glitchy and unreliable, especially on Duke WiFi (it's better on mobile data).”
51. “Rider is incredibly unreliable.”
52. “Too often rider doesn’t show bus times.”
53. “Rider is easily chumped by Google Maps (pressing directions to east and west as a bus rider gives more accurate, uptodate, and useful information than rider)”
54. “I wish TransLoc/Rider was more accurate-- accounted for all buses.”
55. “Rider is inaccurate most of the time.”
56. “TransLoc is buns. Virtually never accurate”
57. “TransLoc to be updated/accurate for weekend schedule”
58. “The rider app stops working at night! Please make it work.”
59. “more accurate rider app”
60. “Transloc is very inaccurate and almost never helpful.”
61. “More accurate timings on rider”
62. “Transloc does not always track the buses that are operating.”
63. “Oftentimes, Rider will state "No Prediction" or show incorrect information which ca be very frustrating when trying to get from one campus to the next under a time crunch.”
64. “Transloc is just horribly innacurate, doesn't account for spontaenous changes, and the schedule is rarely correct”
65. “I don't use the TransLoc app anymore but it was never accurate.”
66. “The rider app is very inconsistent and is never right.’
67. “More accurate transloc PLEASE”
68. “better eprint, transloc”
69. “Issues with Rider are problems with transportation that need to be fixed.”
70. “transloc isn't usually accurate for buses, possibly behind.”

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Questions?

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Link to This Presentation:

http://bit.ly/ITACforDSG2020