Research IT Services
Survey Final Results - Brief Breakdown
During October 2007, Research IT Services conducted a survey of the UCD Research Community in an effort to establish their requirements with regards to their IT needs as they relate to the research enterprise. As a precursor to this, a short survey was designed over the summer in order to allow us to conduct quantitative research into this area of concern. An initial survey was piloted with a small group of 31 individual members of the research community, selected at random, of whom 15 completed the survey to give us an exceptional response rate of just over 48%. The feedback gathered from this pilot, coupled with direct feedback from members of the Research IT Steering group enabled us to further customise the survey itself before surveying the whole of the UCD Research Community. The information gathered from the final survey is intended to be used to feed into the Research IT Services strategy for the coming one to three year period.
The undertaking of such a survey of the Research Community would also allow us to establish not only current and future IT requirements but also the level of awareness amongst the community of currently available services on offer through IT Services, specifically Research IT Services.
The final survey was distributed through the UCD Communications Office in the form of a direct e-mail to all staff and research students and as an announcement in UCD Connect. Although the survey was circulated to all staff, it was intended that only staff with an involvement in research would respond, and from the results, this appears to be the case. In total, there have been 211 responses to the survey split between staff and students as shown.
Respondent Type Staff 56% Student 44% Figure 1
The survey consisted of a number of researcher identifier questions such as college and school, along with thirteen service specific questions.
General Respondent Information
Of the survey respondents, distribution across the Colleges was as follows:
Respondents by College
College of Life Sciences College of Arts & Celtic Studies College of Engineering, Mathematical & Physical Sciences
College of Human Sciences College of Business & Law Other
Figure 2
With the percentage breakdown across the schools as follows:
School / Institute % Of
Respondents
Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology 0.5%
Clinton Institute for American Studies 0.5%
Conway Institute of Biomolecular & Biomedical Research 0.5%
Geary Institute 2.4%
Urban Institute Ireland 0.9%
School of Agriculture, Food Science & Veterinary Medicine 6.6%
School of Archaeology 5.2%
School of Architecture, Landscape & Civil Engineering 1.9%
School of Art History & Cultural Policy 1.9%
School of Bio molecular & Biomedical Science 5.2%
School of Biology & Environmental Science 11.8%
School of Business 7.1%
School of Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering 1.9%
School of Chemistry & Chemical Biology 1.9%
School of Classics 0.5%
School of Electrical, Electronic & Mechanical Engineering 5.7%
School of English & Drama 1.9%
School of Geography, Planning & Environmental Policy 2.4%
School of Geological Sciences 0.9%
School of History & Archives 2.4%
School of Information & Library Studies 0.5%
School of Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore & Linguistics 1.4%
School of Languages, Literature & Film 0.9%
School of Law 0.5%
School of Mathematical Sciences 3.8%
School of Medicine & Medical Science 7.6%
School of Music 0.5%
School of Nursing, Midwifery & Health Systems 0.9%
School of Philosophy 1.4%
School of Physics 1.4%
School of Physiotherapy & Performance Science 0.9%
School of Politics & International Relations 3.3%
School of Psychology 3.8%
School of Public Health & Population Science 1.9%
School of Social Justice 1.4%
School of Sociology 1.4%
An area that we were keen to gather an insight into was the number of researchers within UCD who are involved in collaboration of some kind. This knowledge is crucial to Research IT Services in the provision of successful collaboration tools to the research community, enabling internal and external collaboration
Researchers Involved in Collaboration
2% 29% 7% 11% 10% 28% 10% 3% Nationally Only No
Nationally & Internationally Internally & Nationally Internally Only (within UCD) Internally, Nationally & Internationally Internally & Internationally
Internationally Only
Responses to Service Related Questions
Owing to the nature of the survey and audience at which it is aimed the survey pilot requested that respondents indicate, on a semantic differential scale, from 1 to 6 with 1 being “Very Likely” and 6 being “Not at All Likely”, the likelihood of their using a service either currently provided or proposed by Research IT Services. This scale was altered after the pilot to allow for a “Not Relevant” option. Respondents were also given the option of selecting “Don’t know what this is” as a response, and as suggested from the pilot survey feedback a glossary of the terms was provided for respondents in the “Jargon Buster”. Also based on feedback from the survey, an option to select the given service as being not relevant to the respondent was available. It should be noted however that respondents could choose not to answer some or all of the questions.
Included here is a list of the services and the percentages of respondents occurring at each of the extremes of the scale. The percentage response for the “don’t know what this is”, “not relevant” options are also included.
Very
likely Not at all likely RelevantNot know Don't what this
is
No. Service % % % %
1 Research Video Conferencing Facilities 14.7 21.8 5.2 1.4
2 Research IT Training / Workshops / User Groups 24.6 8.1 5.2 3.3
3 Research IT Security Services 24.2 10 5.2 4.3
4 Research IT Technical Support & Consultancy 33.2 6.2 1.9 4.3
5 Research Database provisioning tools 17.5 7.6 17.5 4.7
6 Mass Research Data Storage 24.6 13.7 4.7 7.1
7 Research Applications / Programming Tools 29.4 12.8 4.7 7.6 8 Research Management Systems & Reports 17.5 10.9 3.8 14.2
9 High Bandwidth Network Connectivity 27 9 6.2 14.7
10 Collaborative Software Tools / Applications 21.8 13.3 4.7 16.6
11 Flexible Research Collaboration Space 19.9 11.4 5.7 19.9
12 Research Compute Clusters 15.6 14.7 9 22.3
13 Equipment Hosting Service 11.8 16.6 10.9 25.1
14 Research Collaborative Visualisation Services 8.1 18.5 6.2 26.1
15 Research Grid Computing 5.7 16.6 14.2 35.1
16 Short Term proof of concept test server provision 5.7 18.5 13.7 37
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Short Term proof of concept test server provision
Research Grid Computing Research Collaborative Visualisation Services Equipment Hosting Service Research Videoconferencing Facilities Research Compute Clusters Research Database provisioning tools Research Management Systems & Reports Flexible Research Collaboration Space Collaborative Software Tools / Applications Research IT Security Services Mass Research Data Storage Research IT Training / Workshops / User Groups High Bandwidth Network Connectivity Research Applications / Programming Tools Research IT Technical Support & Consultancy
Very likely Likely Possibly Maybe Not very likely Not at all likely Not Relevant Don't know what this is No answer
Figure 4 - Services ranked as being most required
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Research Videoconferencing Facilities Research IT Training / Workshops / User Groups Research IT Security Services Research IT Technical Support & Consultancy Research Database provisioning tools Mass Research Data Storage Research Applications / Programming Tools Research Management Systems & Reports High Bandwidth Network Connectivity Collaborative Software Tools / Applications Flexible Research Collaboration Space Research Compute Clusters Equipment Hosting Service Research Collaborative Visualisation Services Research Grid Computing Short Term proof of concept test server provision
Very likely Likely Possibly Maybe Not very likely Not at all likely Not Relevant No answer Don't know what this is
Figure 5 - Services ranked in order of least recognised
The survey presented the opportunity to identify the services on offer with which the research community were least familiar. Giving the option to choose “Don’t know what this is” on all questions regardless of whether the service is currently available or not allows us to garner from the results whether the services we have assumed to be important now and in the future are in fact that. Figure 5 shows us that we still have some work to do in publicising existing services to the research community.
As part of the analysis of answers for the survey we can identify the most frequent answer to each question. Looking at the data from this perspective is useful in identifying the areas that customers are both least familiar with.
Areas where respondents most frequent answer was “Very Likely” to be used are:
• Collaborative Software Tools / Applications
• High Bandwidth Network Connectivity
• Mass Research Data Storage
• Research Applications / Programming Tools
• Research IT Technical Support & Consultancy
• Research IT Security Services
• Research IT Training / Workshops / User Groups
• Research Management Systems & Reports
Areas where respondent’s most common response indicated them to be least familiar with were:
• Flexible Research Collaboration Space
• Research Collaborative Visualisation Services
• Research Compute Clusters
• Short Term proof of concept test server provision
• Equipment Hosting Service (Research IT Data Centre)
• Research Grid Computing
• Research Database provisioning tools
And the area listed as the least likely to be used was:
• Research Videoconferencing Facilities
Comments Analysis
Respondents to the survey were given the opportunity to include comments in their response. Not all of the responses included comments. Of those that did, there is an underlying concern with three main area:
• Training
• Software Availability
• Coding / Programming Assistance
Analysis of the comments requires some more considerable work. However, some of the responses are in actuality simply requests for access to the services already available and these will be dealt with separately.
