| The Survey Research
Center, under contract with the Public Affairs office, carried out
a campus-wide telephone survey of UGA faculty and staff about Columns,
the university’s weekly newspaper, between Feb. 23 and
March 2, 2004.
Interviews were conducted with 400 faculty and staff members
on the Athens campus, randomly selected but controlled to make sure
approximately comparable numbers of faculty/administration and staff
were interviewed. Questions and procedures were designed to provide
meaningful comparisons with preceding Columns
readers’ surveys in March 1995 and February 1999. Several
questions were added to clarify readers’ use of online resources.
Of those interviewed, 64 percent reported that they always
or frequently read Columns.
There was no statistically significant variation by gender or for
faculty/administration or staff categories. Figures for the 1995
and 1999 surveys were about the same.
Only 2 percent of respondents reported that they did not have access
to a computer on the campus network. In 1999 this figure was 9 percent.
However, only about 40 percent were aware that Columns
is available on the Web, the same as in 1999. Of those who were
aware of the online version, almost all (97 percent) usually read
the printed version. More than half (54 percent) reported they had
never used the online version, even though they knew it existed.
Half (51 percent) said they would not read Columns
at all if it were only available online.
About 70 percent of respondents said they made frequent or occasional
use of the university’s online master calendar (www.uga.edu/mastercalendar).
The survey also asked which source respondents were most likely
to use when deciding to attend an event at UGA; 37 percent said
they relied on materials (brochures, posters, Web sites) produced
by the unit sponsoring the event, 18 percent said they used the
UGA home page, 13 percent the Red
& Black, 12 percent the Athens
Banner-Herald, 11 percent the UGA Guide in Columns,
and 9 percent the master calendar.
Front-page Columns articles
are always or frequently read by 76 percent of those surveyed;
administrators were somewhat more likely and faculty and staff slightly
less likely to read front-page news. Columns
is considered an excellent or good source of information about UGA
by 82 percent of the survey respondents, and 79 percent said
the same of the UGA home page.
The survey questioned respondents about whether they would like
more, less, or the same amount of coverage of a list of possible
topics; at least 80 percent of readers indicated they wanted
more or the same coverage on all topics. More than half said they
wanted more coverage of four areas: legislative issues (63 percent),
the university budget process (58 percent), institutional issues
(54 percent) and personnel issues (54 percent). The same
issues had been highlighted by respondents to the 1999 survey, but
by higher percentages, and in 1999 respondents had also asked for
more cultural events previews.
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