A Profile of Computer Use among the University of Illinois Humanities Faculty

Abstract

The faculty of the School of Humanities of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) were surveyed to assess their current use of and attitudes towards educational computing. The respondents were generally self-trained in computer use, indicated positive attitudes to, and made frequent use of computers. Frequency of computer use, level of general computing skills, computer interest, and anxiety were analyzed according to respondent rank, sex, and age. Faculty perceptions of obstacles to computer use in the humanities indicate a need to address issues of funding for hardware, quality of software, training, and technical support. The main faculty interests in applications software include word processing, desktop publishing, graphics, database management, communications, and computer-assisted instruction. While recognizing that humanities faculty do not have the same level of involvement in computing as faculty in more “technical” disciplines, UIUC humanists, as a group, are clearly not intimidated by computer technology.