Survey Methodology

During a two-week period in November 2000, Information Systems (IS) addressed a survey to faculty, students, and staff. Two-thirds of the 599 respondents were members of a randomly selected pool of IS customers; one-third responded to a featured link on the Web Spotlight on MIT's homepage. The respondent population consisted of 82 faculty members, 251 students, and 266 administrators.

Given the greater number of responses from the random sample for the administrative community, there is a 95% confidence level in the extrapolation of these results as being representative for that community. There is a 90% confidence level in the results for the faculty and student populations.

Participants in the survey were asked to rank the following 11 IS service areas: Desktop Computing Environment, Network Services, Network Connections, Telephone, Remote Access, Help Services, Software Support, Hardware Support, Consulting and Advice, Communications, and Training.

Respondents rated these service areas according to the following point scale:

1 - Very Dissatisfied
2 - Dissatisfied
3 - Neutral
4 - Satisfied
5 - Very Satisfied
N/A - Responses marked N/A were dropped from the evaluation for each question

Gartner Group, an I/T consulting firm, reports satisfaction levels above 3.45 exceed the average ratings for universities.