Michael Grosch

Library services in the media environment: a students' perspective

Purpose – The paper aims to show which media are accepted by students in higher education and which are not. It explains how library media services and other text and information media are related to each other and what part they play in the whole media and learning environment. It examines which library services are most important to students and on which areas university libraries should focus when developing strategies for the future.Design/methodology/approach – Two student surveys and one teacher survey were carried out at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2009 and 2011. They measured the acceptance of 45 media services by using a fully standardized print questionnaire. Possible influence factors were also evaluated.Findings – The acceptance of electronic text media amongst students is still growing, while acceptance of print media is decreasing. The use of external text‐related services is growing, while the use of the internal library catalogue is declining. A certain student user type who prefe...

What students use: Results of a survey on media use among engineering students

Nowadays, university students are facing a large number of highly diverse media, including conventional books as well as online-based mobile applications - all used to support learning. Especially the internet with its connected social media services or e-learning possibilities induced significant changes in society and in the landscape of higher education during the last years and still do so. The four universities RWTH Aachen University, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology conducted an exploratory student survey on media and information use, in order to expand the empirical database on that topic. A special focus was laid on mobile learning. In this context the survey asked for hardware and software the students are using and for those situations where they already got in contact with any kind of mobile learning - e.g. by using special apps for learning or because they were asked by their teachers to use a mobile device. The results of the survey elucidate that the use of online media and especially social media as well as mobile devices in higher education are in need to be promoted in future. Furthermore, it reveals demands for action in the field of media competency concerning students as well as teachers.

Trends in Students Media Usage

Trends in media usage by students can affect the way they learn. Students demand the use of technology, thus institutions and instructors should meet students’ requests. This paper describes the results of a survey where drivers in the use of media show continuously increasing or decreasing values from the first to the fourth year of study experience at the Western University, Canada, highlighting trends in the usage of new and traditional media in higher education by students. The survey was used to gather data on students’ media usage habits and user satisfaction from first to fourth year of study and found that media usage increases over the years from first to fourth. The presentation of data using bar charts reveals a slight increase over the years in students owning notebooks or laptops off-campus and a significant increase from first to fourth year of students accessing online academic periodicals and journals. Another noteworthy finding relates to fourth year students being more conscious of the quality of information that they read on the Internet in comparison to students in first year, even though this is a slight year on year increase.

Status Quo of Media Usage and Mobile Learning in Engineering Education

The usage of different kinds of media is part and parcel of teaching and learning processes in higher education. According to today’s possibilities of information and communication technologies, mobile devices and app-usage have become indispensable for a big share of the population in everyday life. However, there is little empirical evidence on how students use mobile devices for learning processes in higher education, especially in engineering education. Within the project “Excellent Teaching and Learning in Engineering Sciences (ELLI)”, three large technical universities (RWTH Aachen University, Ruhr-University Bochum, Technical University Dortmund) follow different approaches in order to improve the current teaching and learning situation in engineering education. Many of the corresponding measures are media-related. In this context, a broad understanding of media is applied which includes hardware as well as software. Amongst others, research is conducted on the topics of mobile learning, virtual laboratories, virtual collaboration, social media services and e-learning recommendation systems for teaching staff. In order to match the literature and results of the project with the current habits of study related media usage of students, the three universities conducted a survey in cooperation with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The KIT’s questionnaire covers more than 50 education-related media and IT-Services and has been applied at over 20 universities in 6 countries. For the survey conducted within the ELLI project, the topic of mobile learning was added to the questionnaire. Over 1.500 students were asked about their habits of study related media usage in terms of frequency of use and level of satisfaction. Regarding the topic of mobile learning, the students were asked for the kind of hardware and the kind of apps they use for higher education purposes. The 130 identified apps were clustered regarding subject and function. This paper presents the main results concerning the students’ general habits of study related media usage and their mobile learning habits. It concludes with a special focus on the possibilities mobile devices offer to the improvement of engineering education.

Media Usage in Post-Secondary Education and Implications for Teaching and Learning

The Web 2.0 has permeated academic life. The use of online information services in post-secondary education has led to dramatic changes in faculty teaching methods as well as in the learning and study behavior of students. At the same time, traditional information media, such as textbooks and printed handouts, still form the basic pillars of teaching and learning. This paper reports the results of a survey about media usage in teaching and learning conducted with Western University students and instructors, highlighting trends in the usage of new and traditional media in higher education by instructors and students. In addition, the survey comprises part of an international research program in which 20 universities from 10 countries are currently participating. Further, the study will hopefully become a part of the ongoing discussion of practices and policies that purport to advance the effective use of media in teaching and learning.

Mediale Hochschul-Perspektiven 2020 in Baden-Württemberg : empirische Untersuchung im Rahmen der Allianz "Forward IT"

Die Digitalisierung in der akademischen Bildung wird in der Studie aus der organisationalen Perspektive einer Hochschule - als „Modell“ – betrachtet und konkretisiert anhand der Fallbeispiele des Karlsruher Instituts fur Technologie und der Universitat Stuttgart. Als wesentliche Einflussbereiche gelten die digitale Durchdringung der Wissenschaft und des Studiums, die digitale Vernetzung der hochschulischen Systeme sowie die gewohnheitsmasige Nutzung digitaler Medien bei Lehrenden und Lernenden.