Computer utilization in academic department management at selected professional colleges

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe the degree to which academic department administrators are prepared to use computer technology in performing their administrative functions as well as to describe the extent of proper and efficient computer utilization in administrative offices of college departments. In order to accomplish this purpose, the researcher sought answers to the following: 1. Which of the observed department administrators were computer literate? 2. What types of computer utilization were actually taking place in administrative offices of academic departments? 3. Was there a relationship between an academic administrator's computer literacy and the computer utilization in his/her department? 4. Were there unique and novel methods of office automation utilized in academic department offices? There were forty-eight interviews conducted with forty-eight academic department chairmen in six Texas universities. The results were as follows: 1. Fifty-two percent of the academic department chairmen sampled were considered to be computer literate, while forty-six percent were considered to be computer illiterate. One case was missing, because of missing data. 2. Sixty-five percent of the academic departments were found to have a high degree of utilization, while thirty-five percent had a low degree of utilization. 3. There was a relationship between a department chairman's computer literacy and the computer utilization in his/her academic department at the .05 level of significance. 4. Only nineteen percent of the forty-eight department chairmen reported any novel and unique methods of administrative computer utilization in academic departments. Some of these included: mailing lists of graduates from the department, expenditure graphs, and special formatting of letters to potential students.