Webology, Volume 2, Number 4, December, 2005 |
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Rajeev Kumar
Library Assistant, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College of Engineering & Technology, Ferozepur, India, and Ph.D. Student of Department of Library and Information Science, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India. E-mail: manhas_rajeev@yahoo.co.in
Amritpal Kaur
Reader and Head of Department of Library and Information Science, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India. E-mail: amrit_lisc@yahoo.co.in
Received December 6, 2005; Accepted December 24, 2005
The aim of this study was to analyze the use of the Internet and related issues among the teachers and students of engineering colleges of Punjab, India. A well structured questionnaire was distributed among the 960 teachers and students of all the engineering colleges of Punjab. The response rate was 84.2 per cent. The present study demonstrates and elaborates the various aspects of Internet use such as, frequency of Internet use, most frequently used place for Internet use, purposes for which the Internet is used, use of Internet services, ways to browse the information from the Internet, problems faced by the users and satisfaction level of users with the Internet facilities provided in the colleges. The result of the survey also provided information about the benefits of the Internet over conventional documents. It was found that the Internet had become a vital instrument for teaching, research and learning process of these respondents. Some suggestions have been set forth to make the service more beneficial for the academic community of the engineering colleges under study.
Internet use, Teachers, Students, Punjab, India
In the era of networked information, Internet, the largest worldwide network of networks, has emerged as the most powerful tool for an instant access to information. Information is now just a 'finger touch' distance away from the user and it would not be inappropriate to say that the Internet has become the biggest global digital information library which provides the fastest access to the right kind of information in nano-seconds of time to end-user at any time and at any place in the world. The Internet has become the most extensively used information source that empowers the average person to get in roaming with the latest information. Today's users can no longer depend on conventional information sources to cope with the latest developments in their respective fields.
The Internet has emerged as a powerful educational tool. With the increasing impact of information and communication technologies on higher education, all those concerned with higher education are attempting to grasp how ICT could help in modernizing the process of teaching, learning and research. With the advent of the Internet, following dilemma arise in higher educational system:
So, in this era, teachers and students can carry forward their work on the Internet in ways that are similar to and tightly intertwined with the traditional ways that they learn, teach and study in libraries, classrooms, laboratories, seminars, conferences, etc. The Internet can provide access to essentially unlimited resources of information not conventionally obtainable through other means.
Today, Engineering colleges are playing an important role in imparting technical education. The Engineers, who are the outcomes of these colleges, require the latest and pinpointed information in their respective fields. Due to the high cost of engineering information resources, developing countries cannot provide these resources to their users. But the Internet with its advantages, make the way for the developing countries to access information at a very low cost.
This part is concerned with the review of literature directly related to the present study. It is in two parts viz. review of foreign literature and review of Indian literature. A review of the literature reveals that the teachers and the students are the most frequent users of Internet. They use Internet for teaching, learning and for research purposes.
Becker (1998) conducted a study on the Internet use by 2250 teachers from public and private schools in the U.S. The study revealed that 90% of the teachers had Internet access. More than half of the teachers (59%) had Internet access at home. A majority of the teachers (68%) used Internet to find information resources for preparing their lessons. Singh (1998) conducted a research study on the use of Internet by the librarians in Malaysia. The main findings of the study indicated that 90% of the respondents used the Internet for work related purposes. Most of the respondents were recent users. Voorbij (1999) examined the use of the Internet amongst students and academicians in the Netherlands. A questionnaire was distributed among 1000 members of the academic community and three focus-group interviews were also held with faculty members. The study revealed that the Web was being used primarily to search general, factual, ephemeral or very specific information. The study also revealed that students and academicians faced many problems while searching the Web. Williams (1999) reported the use of information technology and the Internet in his project entitled "Information Technology in Michigan: Adult and Teen Survey Report." The results indicated that the majority of the respondents (72%) used the Internet at least once a week and 45% at least once a day.
Moreover, Laite (2000) surveyed 406 graduate and undergraduate students from Shippensburg University. The survey showed that 57.6% of the undergraduate students used the Internet 1-2 times per week and another 37.1% used it 1-2 times daily. More than 50% of the graduate students used Internet 1-2 times per week and 37.7% used it 1-2 times daily. The survey showed that the most used Internet service was e-mail. A hundred percent of the graduates and undergraduate students used e-mail service. Nicholas et al. (2003) conducted a study in the UK to examine the use of the web for health information and advice. More than 1300 people were surveyed. The study showed that 66% of the respondents accessed the Internet from home, 28% from work place and the remainder (6%) used a combination of both work place and home. Hanauer et al. (2004) surveyed a diverse community college to assess the use of the Internet by the students for health-related information. The survey showed that although all the students surveyed had free Internet access through their community college, yet only 97% of the students reported having access to the Internet. The survey showed that 83% Internet users had access to the Internet at their home and 51% of the respondents accessed Internet at college or library. Eighty-one percent of the students reported to access the Internet most for college work and 80% for e-mail/chat. Men and women searched for health information in almost equal numbers.
A recent study by Asemi (2005) shows that all the respondents were using the Internet frequently because all faculties were provided connection to the Internet. It was revealed that the researchers of the university were getting quality information through the Internet. Fifty-five percent of the respondents searched for scientific information through the Internet because the university library had provided access to various databases and online journals for all the students and staff.
Bavakutty and Salih (1999) conducted a study at Calicut University, which showed that students, research scholars, and teachers used the Internet for the purpose of study, research and teaching respectively. The purposes of Internet use were: sending and receiving e-mails in connection with academic requirements, making a search on library catalogues, downloading images and communication with the peer. Kooganurmath and Jange (1999) conducted a study, which revealed that a majority of the users used the Internet for communication, followed by the access to information. More than 70% of the users used it for higher studies and only 39% used it for discussions with peer groups. The most used services of Internet were e-mail, the Web, discussion forums, FTP and Telnet.
A study conducted by Mahajan and Patil (1999) revealed that the purpose of using Internet by research workers at Pune University was to conduct literature search; for students was to know curriculum based information; for teachers to find supporting information to write articles. Naushad Ali (2000) conducted a study at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. The study showed that more than 50% of the study population was satisfied regarding the timings of the Internet service, but were not satisfied with staff's cooperation, and reservation facility. Majority of the respondents were not happy with the number of nodes available. Chandran (2000) conducted a study at S V University, Tirupathi, which showed that more than 25% of the respondents used the Internet for 2-3 times a week and more than 56% used it for accessing information. A majority of the respondents used the Web and e-mail services of Internet. The purposes of using Internet included communication and information gathering. The sources used for identifying information about Internet included website itself, journals and magazines, staff and newspapers. A majority of the respondents used general websites as compared to recreational and discipline oriented websites. Amritpal Kaur (2000) conducted a survey regarding the use of Internet facility at the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. The study indicated that all respondents used Internet for sending e-mail and 82% for Web. More than 60% of the respondents used Internet for primary information. 38% for secondary and only 15% used it for consulting OPACs. A majority of the respondents i.e. 75.6% faced the problem of slow Internet connectivity. All respondents used search engines to browse the required information. More than one third of the respondents typed the web address directly and only 1.5% used subscription databases. The results of the study further showed that more than 80% of the respondents felt that in comparison to traditional documents, Internet was time saving, easy to use, more informative, more useful and more preferred.
Kanaujia and Satyanarayana (2003) conducted a study of the Science & Technology community of Lucknow city to assess the level of awareness and demand of web based learning environment among Science & Technology information seekers. The major findings of the study revealed that 49.2% users browsed the Web for more than 2 to 4 hours and 14% for more than 5 hours a day. The study further showed that 36.6% users consulted e-journals regularly on the Internet, 40.4% used Internet for consulting technical reports, 24.8% to find online databases and 10.4% for telnet service.
Recently, Mishra, Yadav and Bisht (2005) conducted a study to know Internet utilization pattern of the undergraduate students of G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar. The findings of the study indicated that a majority of the students (85.7%) used the Internet. Out of the Internet users 67.7% were male students and 32.3% female students. The findings of the study also showed that 61.5% of the males and 51.6% of the females used Internet for preparing assignments. A majority of the respondents i.e. 83.1% male and 61.3% female respondents indicated that they faced the problem of slow functioning of Internet connection.
The ever increasing number of people accessing Internet coupled with recent explosion of information resources on the Internet, may have considerable implications for teaching, learning and research. Teachers and students are depending more and more on the Internet for their various educational purposes. The present survey is, therefore, an attempt to assess the effectiveness of Internet as an educational tool, and what role it actually plays in the educational system with special reference to the engineering colleges in the state of Punjab.
The Internet is an inseparable part of today's engineering educational system. Engineering colleges invest a good deal of amount on providing this facility to both the teachers and students. It is, therefore, important to find out up-to what extent they are utilizing this facility.
As engineering colleges provide Internet facility to both the teachers and the students and expect them to utilize it for education purposes, it is necessary to conduct a study to determine whether Internet is used for academic activities and how the Internet has influenced the academic efficiency of the target users. The study also explores the satisfaction level of the users with the Internet facility provided by the engineering colleges under study. The study has particularly been taken up to assess the benefits of Internet over conventional documents.
The scope of the present study is limited to the following:
In all, the study includes engineering colleges viz. 32 of Punjab (Appendix I).
The present study is an attempt to find out the pattern of using the Internet by the students and teachers of Punjab State engineering colleges. The study was conducted with the following objectives:
Students registered in the Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) in various disciplines and teachers at the engineering colleges of Punjab represented the target population for this study. The questionnaire method has been employed to collect the data for the present study and to select the sample population, random sampling method has been used. The sample was random in the sense that the sample for the present study consisted of teachers and students selected randomly from 32 engineering colleges of Punjab (including Chandigarh).
Thirty respondents were selected randomly from each college taking at least five (two teachers and three undergraduate students) from each branch of each college under study. Accordingly, 960 questionnaires (i.e. 32 x 30 = 960) were distributed among the teachers and undergraduate students of the engineering colleges under study out of which 808 (i.e. 334 from the teachers and 474 from the students) were received back duly filled in.
Teachers : 334 (41.3)
Students : 474 (58.7)
Total : 808 (100.0)
(The figures in the parenthesis indicate the percentage)
| Branches | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic Engineering | 62 | 39.7 | 94 | 60.3 | 156 | 100.0 |
| Computer Science & Engineering | 60 | 39.7 | 91 | 60.3 | 151 | 100.0 |
| Mechanical Engineering | 52 | 40.9 | 75 | 59.1 | 127 | 100.0 |
| Information Technology | 42 | 40.0 | 63 | 60.0 | 105 | 100.0 |
| Electrical Engineering | 40 | 40.0 | 60 | 60.0 | 100 | 100.0 |
| Architecture Engineering | 14 | 36.8 | 24 | 63.2 | 38 | 100.0 |
| Chemical Engineering | 12 | 38.7 | 19 | 61.3 | 31 | 100.0 |
| Instrumentation Engineering | 12 | 40.0 | 18 | 60.0 | 30 | 100.0 |
| Applied Sciences | 20 | 100.0 | - | - | 20 | 100.0 |
| Production Engineering | 8 | 40.0 | 12 | 60.0 | 20 | 100.0 |
| Textile Engineering | 4 | 40.0 | 6 | 60.0 | 10 | 100.0 |
| Industrial Engineering | 4 | 40.0 | 6 | 60.0 | 10 | 100.0 |
| Bio-Technology | 2 | 40.0 | 3 | 60.0 | 5 | 100.0 |
| Food Technology | 2 | 40.0 | 3 | 60.0 | 5 | 100.0 |
| Total | 334 | 41.3 | 474 | 58.7 | 808 | 100.0 |
It can be inferred from table 2 that 30.7% of the academic community have 2 - 4 years of experience in using the Internet, followed by 1 - 2 years of experience in using the Internet with 24.9% response. Table 2 also depicts that 24% of the respondents have started using the Internet for more than 4 years. Where as 11.9% of the respondents have 6 months - 1 year of experience in using the Internet, and 8.5% of the respondents started using the Internet for less than six months.
| Experience of Internet use | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Less than 6 months | 20 | 6.0 | 49 | 10.3 | 69 | 8.5 |
| 6 months to 1 year | 27 | 8.1 | 69 | 14.6 | 96 | 11.9 |
| 1 to 2 years | 71 | 21.3 | 130 | 27.4 | 201 | 24.9 |
| 2 to 4 years | 104 | 31.1 | 144 | 30.8 | 248 | 30.7 |
| More than 4 years | 112 | 33.5 | 82 | 17.3 | 194 | 24.0 |
| Total | 334 | 100.0 | 474 | 100.0 | 808 | 100.0 |
In order to asses the frequency of using the Internet services, the time gap has been classified into four different categories (see Figure 1). It has been found that 48.3% of academic community uses the Internet 2-3 times a week. More than 40% of the respondents use the Internet every day and 5.6% for 2-3 times in a month. Only 2.6% of the respondents use it once in a month. On average the majority of the users from all the engineering colleges of Punjab use the Internet almost once in a week.
Table 3 depicts that 37% of the respondents use the Internet for 2-4 hours a week, 21.8% for 5-6 hours, 16.6% for 7-9 hours, 9.4% for 10-20 hours and 9.2% for more than 20 hours. Only 6% of the respondents have indicated that they use the Internet for less than 2 hour in a week.
| Amount of Time | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Less than 2 Hours a week | 17 | 5.08 | 32 | 6.8 | 49 | 6.0 |
| 2 - 4 Hours a week | 115 | 34.4 | 184 | 38.9 | 299 | 37.0 |
| 5 - 6 Hours a week | 73 | 21.9 | 103 | 21.7 | 176 | 21.8 |
| 7 - 9 Hours a week | 59 | 17.7 | 75 | 15.8 | 134 | 16.6 |
| 10 - 20 Hours a week | 34 | 10.2 | 42 | 8.9 | 76 | 9.4 |
| More than 20 Hours a week | 36 | 10.8 | 38 | 8.0 | 74 | 9.2 |
| Total | 334 | 100.0 | 474 | 100.0 | 808 | 100.0 |
Table 4 highlights the location from where the Internet is mostly accessed by the teachers and students. A majority of the respondents i.e. 70.1% access the Internet at their college, 18.5% access the Internet at their homes and 11.4% choose other places to access the Internet.
| Location of Internet use | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| At College | 233 | 69.8 | 333 | 70.3 | 566 | 70.1 |
| At Home | 73 | 21.8 | 77 | 16.2 | 150 | 18.5 |
| At Other Place | 28 | 8.4 | 64 | 13.5 | 92 | 11.4 |
| Total | 334 | 100.0 | 474 | 100.0 | 808 | 100.0 |
Figure 2 depicts that a majority of the respondents i.e. 69.4% use the Internet primarily for education purpose, 51.9% for research purpose, 47.4% for the communication purpose and 34.7% of the respondents also admit that they use the Internet for entertainment purpose.
Table 5 indicates that 54.3% of the respondents use the Internet for consulting technical reports, 42.3% for e-books, 38.5% for e-journals, 31.7% for databases 30.4% for conference proceedings, 25.5% for theses and dissertations. The number of respondents who use the Internet for consulting standards and patents is very small i.e. 12.6%.
| Use of Internet resources | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technical Reports | 196 | 58.7 | 243 | 51.3 | 439 | 54.3 |
| E-books | 155 | 46.4 | 187 | 39.5 | 342 | 42.3 |
| E-journals | 121 | 36.2 | 190 | 40.1 | 311 | 38.5 |
| Databases | 112 | 33.5 | 144 | 30.4 | 256 | 31.7 |
| Conference Proceedings | 132 | 39.5 | 114 | 24.1 | 246 | 30.4 |
| Theses and Dissertations | 123 | 36.8 | 83 | 17.5 | 206 | 25.5 |
| Standards and Patents | 49 | 14.7 | 53 | 11.2 | 102 | 12.6 |
Table 6 exhibits that e-mail is the most popular service among the respondents. All of the respondents use the Internet for sending e-mail followed by World Wide Web (99.7%) and 73.6% of the respondents use the Internet for chatting and 50% for frequently asked questions. The use for the other services such as list servers/ discussion groups, archie, bulletin board, telnet, FTP ranges between 11.5% to 35%.
| Use of Internet services | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic Mail (E-mail) | 334 | 100.0 | 474 | 100.0 | 808 | 100.0 |
| World Wide Web | 333 | 99.7 | 469 | 98.9 | 802 | 99.3 |
| Chatting | 238 | 71.3 | 357 | 75.3 | 595 | 73.6 |
| Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) | 174 | 52.1 | 228 | 48.1 | 402 | 50.1 |
| File Transfer Protocol (FTP) | 127 | 38.0 | 156 | 32.9 | 283 | 35.0 |
| Telnet | 105 | 31.4 | 136 | 28.7 | 241 | 29.8 |
| Bulletin Board Services (BBS) | 83 | 24.9 | 131 | 27.6 | 214 | 26.5 |
| Archie | 50 | 15.0 | 66 | 13.9 | 116 | 14.4 |
| List Servers/ Discussion Groups | 39 | 11.7 | 54 | 11.4 | 93 | 11.5 |
Table 7 indicates that 77% of the respondents use e-mail for personal communication, 76.1% for academic purposes and 37% for pleasure purposes.
| Purposes of E-mail | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | 257 | 77.5 | 366 | 77.2 | 623 | 77.0 |
| Academic | 265 | 79.3 | 350 | 73.8 | 615 | 76.1 |
| Pleasure | 118 | 35.3 | 181 | 38.2 | 299 | 37.0 |
It can be inferred from Table 8 that using the Internet is not free from problems. The most common problem faced by the users is that of slow Internet access speed which takes a lot of their slot time to retrieve the relevant information.
| Use of Internet services | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slow access speed | 218 | 65.6 | 343 | 72.4 | 561 | 69.4 |
| Difficulty in finding relevant information | 58 | 17.4 | 114 | 24.1 | 172 | 21.3 |
| Privacy Problem | 61 | 18.3 | 86 | 18.2 | 147 | 18.2 |
| Overload of information on the Internet | 67 | 20.1 | 71 | 15.1 | 138 | 17.1 |
| It takes too long to view/ download pages | 43 | 12.9 | 84 | 17.7 | 127 | 15.7 |
Table 9 exhibits that more than 80% of the respondents feel that in comparison to conventional documents, the Internet is easy to use (91.6%), more informative (89.1%), time saving (88.1%) and more useful (82.5%) and 76.1% of the respondents also admit that it is less expensive in comparison to conventional documents.
| Benefit | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy to use | 309 | 92.5 | 431 | 90.9 | 740 | 91.6 |
| More Informative | 304 | 91.0 | 415 | 87.5 | 719 | 89.1 |
| Time saving | 300 | 90.0 | 412 | 86.9 | 712 | 88.1 |
| More useful | 286 | 85.6 | 381 | 80.3 | 667 | 82.5 |
| Less expensive | 263 | 78.7 | 351 | 74.0 | 614 | 76.1 |
| More preferred | 239 | 71.5 | 310 | 65.4 | 549 | 68.4 |
According to table10, 56.5% of the respondents think that due to availability of latest and instant access to information on the Internet, dependency on Internet has increased. More than one third of the respondents feel that the Internet has improved their professional competence, and 14.1% respondents admit that the Internet has expedited their research process.
| Influence of Internet | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dependency on Internet has increased | 190 | 56.9 | 267 | 56.3 | 457 | 56.5 |
| Improved professional competence | 139 | 41.6 | 151 | 31.9 | 290 | 35.9 |
| Expedited the research process | 46 | 13.8 | 68 | 14.3 | 114 | 14.1 |
Table 11 shows that only 31.1% of the respondents feel fully satisfied with the service, 52.2% partially satisfied and 16.7% least satisfied.
| Satisfaction with Internet facilities | Teachers | % | Students | % | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Partially satisfied | 169 | 50.6 | 253 | 53.4 | 422 | 52.2 |
| Fully satisfied | 126 | 37.7 | 125 | 26.4 | 251 | 31.1 |
| Least satisfied | 37 | 11.1 | 91 | 19.2 | 128 | 15.8 |
| No comments | 2 | 0.5 | 5 | 1.1 | 7 | 0.9 |
| Total | 334 | 100.0 | 474 | 100.0 | 808 | 100.0 |
Major findings of the survey are:
Based on the findings of the study, the following suggestions are recommended to improve the use of the Internet among the academic community i.e. teachers and students of engineering colleges under study:
The Internet facility has enabled the teachers and students to enhance their academic excellence by providing them the latest information and access to worldwide information. The present study has highlighted the existing situation of the Internet services provided by the engineering colleges of Punjab, India. The situation is not, however, very satisfactory from the library point of view. Only some engineering college libraries have Internet facility, and even this is not extended to the users. So, it should be extended to all the engineering college libraries. The information on the Internet is not usually available in an organized way and the users are unable to get pin pointed information from the Internet. In order to make the Internet more beneficial, the library staff who have acquired a good deal of efficiency in the collection, organization and retrieval of information should feel duty-bound to see that the users are able to obtain right information at the right time. For this, they should organize and classify the information on a website in such a way that the users are able to find easily the information they need for their studies and research purposes. The library services supplemented by Internet services can prove a great boon to the users in getting the right information at the right time.
The present study has concentrated on the most frequent users of Internet in the engineering colleges i.e. the teachers and the students. The scope of the study was limited to the engineering colleges of Punjab (including Chandigarh). There is a vast scope for future research in different types of users' behaviour and comparison of users' behaviour and attitudes towards the Internet.
| Sr. No. | Name of Engineering Colleges (Approved under AICTE) |
|---|---|
| 1. | Adesh Institute of Engineering & Techonology, Faridkot |
| 2. | Amritsar College of Engneering & Technology, Amritsar |
| 3. | Baba Banda Singh Engineering College, Fatehgarh Sahib |
| 4. | Beant College of Engineering & Technology, Gurdaspur |
| 5. | Bhai Gurdas Institute of Engineering & Technology, Sangrur |
| 6. | Bhai Maha Singh College of Engineering, Muktsar |
| 7. | Chandigarh Engineering College, Mohali |
| 8. | Chandigarh College of Architecture Engineering, Chandigarh |
| 9. | Chitkara Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala |
| 10. | College of Engineering and Management, Kapurthala |
| 11. | D.A.V. Institute of Engineering and Technology, Jalandhar |
| 12. | Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Regional Engg. College, Jalandhar |
| 13. | GGS College of Modern Technology, Kharar, SAS Nagar |
| 14. | Giani Zail Singh, College of Engineering & Technology, Bhatinda |
| 15. | Guru Gobind Singh College of Engineering, Talwandi Sbo |
| 16. | Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa Institute of Engineering & Technology, Malout |
| 17. | Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana |
| 18. | I.I.T.T. College of Engineering, Pojewal Distt., Nawanshahar |
| 19. | Institute of Engineering & Technology, Ropar |
| 20. | Lala Lajpat Rai Institute of Engineering & Technology, Moga. |
| 21. | Lovely Institute of Technology, Distt. Kapurthala |
| 22. | Ludhiana College of Engineering & Technology, Ludhiana |
| 23. | Malout Institute of Management & Information Technology, Malout |
| 24. | Punjab College of Engineering & Technology, Patiala |
| 25. | Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh |
| 26. | Rayat Institute of Engineering & Information Technology, Nawanshahar |
| 27. | S.B.S. College of Engineering & Technology, Ferozepur |
| 28. | Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering & Technology, Longowal |
| 29. | Shaheed Udham Singh College of Engineering & Technology, Mohali |
| 30. | Sri Sai College of Engineering & Technology, Pathankot |
| 31. | Sukhmani Institute of Engineering & Technology, Dera Bassi |
| 32. | Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala |
Please Tick mark where necessary.
Bio-data
Academic Qualifications
E-mail Address
Status Teacher Student Other
College Name and Address
Department (Please Tick whichever is applicable)
| Applied Science | Chem Engg. | Computer Sci. | Electronic Engg. | Electrical Engg. | Ind. Engg. | Prod. Engg. | Mech. Engg. | Other (please specify) |
A. General
Does your College have computers? Yes No
If yes, is there Internet connection? Yes No
B. Experience of Internet use
How often do you use Internet services?
Every day 2 to 3 times a week
Once a month 2 to 3 times a month
C. Frequency of Internet use
How long have you been using the Internet?
Less than 6 months 6 months - 1 year
1-2 years 2-4 years
More than 4 years Other
D. Amount of Time spent on the Internet
On average, how many hours you spend in a week to use the Internet?
0 to 1 hours/week 2 to 4 hours/week 5 to 6 hours/week
7 to 9 hours/week 10 to 20 hours/week Over 20 hours/week
E. Location of Internet use
From which place do you most frequently use the Internet?
At college or work At home At other place
F. Purposes for Browsing the Internet
The purpose you mainly use the Internet is for?
Research Entertainment Education Communication
G. Use of Internet resources
Do you use Internet resources? Yes No
If yes, which of the following Internet resources you regularly consult?
(Check all that apply)
Conference Proceedings Engineering Databases E-books
Standards and Patents E-journals Technical Reports
Thesis and Dissertation Other
H. Use of Internet services
Please indicate your awareness of the services being provided
following by Internet and give your preferences of using these
services as 1, 2, and 3 . . . etc.
| Sr. No. | Name of Services | Yes | No | Preference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||
| 2 | WWW (World Wide Web) | |||
| 3 | Telnet (Remote Login) | |||
| 4 | FTP (File Transfer Protocol) | |||
| 5 | Archie | |||
| 6 | List Serve/Discussion Group | |||
| 7 | BBS (Bulletin Board Services) | |||
| 8 | FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) | |||
| 9 | Chatting | |||
| 10 | Any Other |
I. Purposes of E-mail
You mainly use the E-mail for the purpose of
(Please tick whichever applicable)
Academic Personal Pleasure Other
J. Problems faced by the Users
What do you find to be the biggest problems in using the Internet?
(Please check all that apply)
a) Slow access speed
b) Difficulty in finding relevant information
c) Overload of Information on the Internet
d) It takes too long to view/download pages
e) Privacy Problem
f) Other
K. Benefit of the Internet over Conventional Documents
In your opinion, using the Internet as compared to use of
conventional documents is:
(Tick all that apply)
Time saving or Time consuming
Easy to use or Difficult to use
More Informative or Less Informative
More Expensive or Less Expensive
More Useful or Less Useful
More Preferred or Less Preferred
L. Influence of the Internet on Academic Efficiency
How the use of the Internet has influenced your academic efficiency?
a) Use of conventional documents has decreased
b) Dependency on Internet has increased
c) Expedited the research process
d) Improved professional competence
M. User satisfaction with the Internet facilities
Up to what extent, are you satisfied with the Internet facilities
provided by College Internet Section?
Fully Partially Least satisfied
N. Miscellaneous
Please write any other suggestions to improve/ for the
betterment of Internet Services.
Thank you for your time and completing this questionnaire.