Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Faculty, Grads and Staff Use Wireless



The popularity of wireless devices is not limited to undergrads.  Faculty, staff and grad students account for 11,756 devices.  

The table below shows the percentage of users which each device.  So in Arts, 85% of mobile users had a blackberry.   Blackberries were the most common device, there are 2,869 of them, followed closely by Windows, at 2,801.

Faculty
Fac/Staff/
Grad
w/device
Non-
Ugrad Devices
android
iphone
ipad
Black
berry
mac
windows
Arts
744
1703
22
27
14
85
34
48
AHS
277
635
18
27
21
79
31
53
Eng
1865
3511
37
32
12
34
20
54
Env
387
776
20
28
11
53
42
48
Math
621
1318
35
29
17
61
33
38
CS
161
346
30
30
14
63
43
35
Science
1173
2286
26
35
12
43
33
45
A.Support
743
1181
21
40
13
27
19
38

The battle between Windows and Mac really depends on which faculty we examine.  Macs have a lower presence in Academic Support because they are not recommended.   In Computer Science, Macs have a big lead. 
All systems intended to be rolled out over the next few years should be made compatible with Mac, PC, Linux, and as many mobile platforms as possible.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Time for Mobile




Several recent projects rekindled my interest in mobile devices.  Sure I use my laptop every day, and my smartphone is indispensable.  But could I make better use of my own, and better yet, could we do more to support our mobile users.  

In today’s post, I’ll tell you how pervasive wireless is at UW based on stats collected between January 15, 2013 and February 15th.
 
About 42,800 are devices used by 26,700 undergraduates.   An average of 85% of Full Time undergrads have used one or more mobile devices.  It varies by faculty and department.
Faculty      
% with devices
Arts
85
AHS
81
Eng
79
Env
81
Math
96
CS
100
Science
77

(My Math numbers include CS)

Half the students have exactly one mobile device they’ve used at UW; the other half have 2, 3 or more.  Note however, some may be cases where a person upgraded to a new device.


Percent Ugrads With This Exact # of Devices
Faculty
1

2

3

4
Arts
50
41
7
0
AHS
48
41
7
0
Eng
57
47
11
1
Env
52
42
7
0
Math
49
47
12
1
CS
52
46
11
1
Science
50
45
7
1


What products to students use?  At one time years ago the then-Associate Provost of Computing thought to declare Apple products as unsupported by IST.  Now a third of all people use some form of Apple product, or as it turns out, several Apple products.  But in recent developments, Android makes a strong showing, particularly in Engineering, Math and CS.







Percentage of Total Devices


Faculty
android
iphone
ipad
mac
windows
Arts
22
32
8
32
42
AHS
20
31
5
34
40
Eng
40
26
8
18
39
Env
20
30
7
34
38
Math
38
43
16
25
41
CS
51
35
11
27
45
Science
23
29
7
30
41

What is exciting is that a large number of people have devices which are wifi connected and yet portable enough to bring everywhere.  It used to be that laptops had to be heavy, bulky and have short battery lives.  Only a few years ago the industry was banking on netbooks to fill that niche – but consumers largely disagreed.   The surge in smartphones, tablets and super light ultrabooks has changed the landscape.

Engineering Computing labs still fill a particular niche – they provide consistent and modest cost access to software which would be  prohibitively expensive to have students buy,  They will probably be dominated by Windows for some time, just because that’s where the heavy duty Engineering applications live right now.  But we are also rethinking other services we offer to deliver a good experience where users live – and increasingly that space is mobile.

If you have ideas on useful mobile apps, or any sort of useful application, or comments on our services, please Email me: erick@uwaterloo.ca

Erick