2011 Staff Benchmarks & Trends

Institutions that participate in the MISO Survey receive an Excel summary of responses along with SPSS files that allow the school to research their results more deeply.  In addition, institutions receive a workbook with the aggregated results for every time an institution has participated in the survey.  The workbook facilitates longitudinal analysis for institutions that have taken the survey more than once.  It also allows institutions to benchmark their results against those of another school or a dynamically selected cohort of schools.

Beyond providing institutions with these robust tools, The MISO Survey team explores the data at the national level, sharing these results in presentations and publications.  In this post, we will explore the 2011 benchmarks/means and trends for staff at MISO Survey institutions.

Importance and Satisfaction Benchmarks

The benchmarks/means reported here were created by using data from all institutions that participated in any of the 2009-2011 survey cycles.  For institutions that surveyed their population more than once during that period, only the most recent data is included for analysis.

Four-point Likert scales are used for both the importance (1 = not important, 2 = somewhat important, 3 = important, 4 = very important) and satisfaction (1 = dissatisfied, 2 = somewhat dissatisfied, 3 = somewhat satisfied, 4 = satisfied) questions.

Importance for Staff

Services with Staff Importance Ratings of 3.5 and Higher, 2009-2011 (Descending Order):

• E-mail Services (3.89)
• Virus Protection (3.83)
• Network Stability (3.81)
• Network Speed (3.81)
• E-mail SPAM Filtering (3.74)
• Support: Computing Problems (3.71)
• Overall Computing Service (3.62)
• Campus Phone Services (3.50)

The services most important to staff are the core IT functions required to support efficient work.  E-mail, networking, computer support and phone services are the basic services upon which other services are built.  None of the services staff consider most important are focused on teaching and learning as a primary attribute.  Library services and remote access to campus resources, while important to staff, are not as highly valued.

Satisfaction for Staff

Services with Staff Satisfaction Ratings of 3.5 and Higher, 2009-2011 (Descending Order):

Satisfaction is high across the board for staff: only 10 services measured by the survey scored below 3.50 on our four-point scale.  The service with the lowest satisfaction mean, Input into Computing Decisions, still manages to have a mean of 3.29, well above the 3.00 (somewhat satisfied) mark.  Of the eight services ranked most important by staff, only two have satisfaction means below 3.50 – Network Stability and Network Speed.  The remaining six most important services are all found among those services with high satisfaction.

Importance Trends for Staff

Average Annual Change in Importance for Staff, 2005-2011.

Looking at the average annual change in importance of library & computing services for staff, the growth in importance for wireless access clearly stands out.  In fact, wireless access is growing in importance faster than any other service, not only for staff, but for students and faculty as well (to see student and faculty trends, see our recent ECAR Research Bulletin, Evaluating Library and IT Services with the MISO Survey, available to ECAR subscribers now. Mobility (wireless access, borrowing laptops, and off-campus access) and collaboration (video conferencing, course management system, and technology in meeting spaces / classrooms) appear to sum up most of the services increasing in importance for staff.

Nothing is decreasing in importance for staff.  This echoes the faculty, who have sixteen services rising in importance and only one dropping.  Students have twelve services rising in importance and four dropping.  In an economic environment where adding resources is rarely an option, library and computing leaders need to think carefully about strategies to meet the growing needs of our staff, students, and faculty.

Satisfaction Trends for Staff

Average Annual Change in Satisfaction for Staff, 2005-2011.

Satisfaction trends tell a mixed story: while there are more items increasing in satisfaction over time, the three services declining in satisfaction the most are are found among services that are identified as most important: E-mail services, network speed, and network stability.  And while e-mail services are declining in satisfaction, e-mail SPAM filtering is increasing in satisfaction faster than other services: the problem with e-mail isn’t SPAM.  While it’s important to remember that staff are satisfied overall, IT leaders should research these infrastructure services locally to better understand the gaps in expectations that may exist.

CLAC 2011: What Students and Faculty Want – Insights from the MISO Survey

Slides from our presentation, What Students and Faculty Want: Insights from the MISO Survey, are now available.  Thanks to CLAC for allowing us to present – it was a great opportunity to share some of our latest research and to discuss how the MISO Survey brings a rich set of quantitative data to your institution’s library and technology assessment strategies.

2011 Survey Results Now Available

The results of the 2011 MISO Survey are now available to participating institutions.  Since its launch in 2005, the MISO Survey has been taken 88 times by 46 different institutions.  Most of these schools have participated more than once.

The 2011 MISO Survey results workbooks allow you to easily and dynamically compare your institution’s results with results from a customized cohort of peer institutions.  You can also test for statistically significant differences between two sets of results.  Detailed instructions and tutorial videos are available on the MISO Survey Campus Survey Administrator’s Web site (access is restricted to authorized participants).

2011 MISO Survey Analysis

With the 2011 survey cycle now complete, the MISO Survey has a total of 12,842 faculty responses, 18,324 staff responses, and 23,048 student respondents from 2005-2011. This rich data set will allow the MISO Survey team to perform new analysis of trends that affect library and IT organizations.

All of the 2011 participating institutions have now received their survey data. In June, the Survey team will release the Excel workbooks that allow participating institutions to see statistically significant trends in comparison to other schools or dynamically created cohorts. Institutions that have participated in the Survey more than once will also be able to track trends over time.

2010 Survey Response Rates

In 2010, the MISO Survey’s response rates for each campus population were quite good.  The student response rate, in particular, was far better than in past years.

Students

Faculty and staff

Response trends

Over the Survey’s 5 year lifespan, faculty and staff response rates have been consistently high.  Since 2008, we’ve achieved a marked increase in the response rate for students.

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