A survey of instructional technology assets and support services at U.S. schools and colleges of pharmacy

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Fall 1998 by Grapes, Z Tom, Johnson, Diane, Matthews, Hewitt W

computer color printing

presentation mounting

photographic services

document design (paste-ups)

multimedia training

videotape editing

traditional graphic design

The only services which were reportedly provided by less than one-half of the respondents were the older and possibly more traditional services of darkroom production and laminating services.

Classroom Support Services. The final category of services provided by EMDs is direct classroom support. These services include both equipment and services utilized directly in student education in the classroom. Results of these services are presented in Table II.

Questions were also asked to determine video and audio capabilities of the classroom. Response varied widely. There was a wide range of availability of video/data projection systems in the classrooms. The schools reported between one and 21 classrooms equipped with this type of equipment. Specifically, the following equipment was available in three or less classrooms: A query was also made regarding the audio equipment available in classrooms. Seventy point four percent indicated that three or more classrooms were equipped with an audio amplification system while 47.4 percent indicated that three or more classrooms were equipped with an audio player/ recorder.

The final topic investigated in this survey was the type of presentation software utilized by the faculty at the school. The percentage of schools indicating that some or all of the faculty utilized the type of presentation software is presented below.

Microsoft's PowerPoint(R) was the dominant software. The vast majority of respondents indicated that their faculty utilized either the Windows version (97.4 percent) or the Macintosh version (61.5 percent) of PowerPoint(R). Other presentation software that one-quarter or more of the respondents reported being utilized included Harvard Graphics(R) (Windows/DOS - 38.5 percent/35.5 percent), Word Perfect Presentations(R) (30.8 percent) and Corel(R) (25.6 percent). Lotus Freelance(R), Aldus Persuasion(R), Word Perfect Presentations(R) (DOS) and Delta Graphics(R) (Windows) was reported by less than one-fourth of the respondents.

Telecommunications/Continuing Education

The final questionnaire addressed the utilization of telecommunications to provide educational services to distant learners. Respondents were either the Director of Continuing Education or the Director of Telecommunications.

Most respondents (74.4 percent) indicated that their department provided continuing education to the pharmacy school exclusively. The remainder provided services to other schools or other campuses.

Variety of the size of the departments was striking. The number of employees varied from 0.1 FTEs to 40 FTEs with 54.8 percent having two FTEs or less and 71.4 percent having three or less FTEs. The next part of the questionnaire addressed the schools' teleconferencing capability. The results of these questions are reported in Table III. The remainder of the questionnaire addressed the specific mechanism used for video conferencing. Results are presented in Figure 3.