Higher Ed: EDUCAUSE Releases ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology 2013

• “Freely available course content/open educational resources, e-books, simulations and education games, and e-portfolios are still in the experimental stages for most students.” (p. 5)

• As with OERs, experimentation is also the norm for students’ use of e-books, e-portfolios, and simulations/educational games. The most common answer regarding the scope of use in the past year was that students have used these in just one course ” (p. 13)

• Students’ interest in their instructors’ using e-books, e-portfolios, simulations/educational games, and OERs is substantially higher than just a few years ago (see 2011 to 2013 growth; Comparing 2012 and 2013 data exclusively, we find that students’ interest in their instructors’ using these tools has waned a bit, with fewer stating “use it more” and more stating “use it less” this year than last year. ” (p. 13)

• “ECAR focus group students were asked about MOOCs by acronym, by the spelled-out name (massive open online course), and by the names of common MOOC providers (e.g., Coursera, Udacity, edX, MITx, etc.). Despite this variety of opportunities to recognize this unique medium for instructional delivery, blank stares were returned. When prompted about their interest in taking a fully online course, offered by a premier instructor and with highly polished and produced course content, they seemed interested until they were informed that they would be in the course with 10,000, or 30,000, or 100,000 other students. At that point they scoffed at the idea and—unprompted— reiterated that one of the things they like about their current education paradigm is the ability to make personal connections with their instructors. ” (p. 19)

• “If given the opportunity, how would students use smartphones as academic tools? Their most frequent answers were sourcing information (looking up information or accessing digital resources) and photographing information while in class.” (p. 29)

• “Use of various IT tools and resources (e.g., library, CMS, e-books) is about the same this year as last year.” (p. 38)

• “Desktop computer ownership is still strong, but this year we found that students use institutionally provisioned desktops mostly to access on-campus printing and library services.”  (p. 38)

• “In investigating the magnitude of use of open educational resources, e-texts, simulations and games, and e-portfolios, we found that these are experimental experiences for most students; they typically have used them in one class or on occasion rather than as part of their education resource ecosystem. We also found that students are not telling us they want these resources used more—in fact, interest is either flat or decreasing.” (p. 39)

• “Ratings of the importance for IT tools and resources (e.g., library, CMS, e-books) and of institutionally provided services, applications, and websites are waning in nearly all cases. (p. 39)