UW-Madison’s Division of Information Technology’s 2008 Student Survey results said students are still interested in learning how to use new university technology.

According to Brian Rust, senior administration program specialist at DoIT, the annual survey measures trends in student use of UW-Madison technological programs such as Learn@UW and analyzes demand for new services.

A sample of 1,200 UW-Madison students received the web survey and 355 responded. According to university officials, the response rate was 30 percent, at a 95 percent level of confidence.

According to Rust, all students pay a 1.5 percent surcharge—an information technology fee—allowing DoIT members to implement new technological services.

“The trend continues to be portability and convenience … students seem [to] want to access things everywhere and anywhere at anytime,” Rust said.

Officials from DoIT try to take notice of changes in student interest as quickly as possible.

Rust said the demand for web-enabled phones doubled from 6 to 12 percent in the last year. DoIT is trying to address the issue before the demand reaches 50 percent of the population.

Directors of DoIT reacted to student demand with the emerging of wireless laptops.

“Two to three years ago we took the data [from the survey] at the same time we wanted to move ahead with implementing wireless Internet around campus,” Rust said. “So we could justify our wanting to move ahead.”

Other findings from the survey include an analysis of student social networking usage, student response on UW-Madison technology, and satisfaction ratings for individual campus services.

DoIT is in the process of planning new programs to help students access the campus on a wider scale.

Eventually, students will be able to schedule advisor meetings online and more conveniently view class materials with Class Search through the MyUW Portal.