In March 2001 a survey was mailed to all faculty in the CBA. This survey requested information regarding the computer program skill levels required of the students in specific classes. The initial responses covered only about 50% of the classes taught in the CBA, so a follow-up survey was sent in November 2001 for the classes a response had not been received for. By January 2002 we had received responses for approximately 79% of the CBA classes. It is with this data that we compiled the results of the survey.

Table 1 shows the mean results. The average for each class was used to find the mean for the department. Table 2 shows the median results. The median for each class was used to find the median for the department. A response of one (not necessary) was given for the majority of questions, this resulted in low numbers when the classes and departments were averaged. Table 2 was computed to see if the results were significantly different when outliers were removed. Although there are some differences in the results of the two tables, they are not significant.

1=Not necessary 2=Not too important 3=Somewhat important
4=Quite important 5=Absolutely necessary
Contact Kuang Wei Wen, chair of IS Dept., for supporting data.

From these tables we can see that all departments rank the computer skills in the following order: 1) Word 2) Excel 3) PowerPoint 4) Integration 5) Access. Looking more closely at the data we found the following: Word is important in all CBA classes; Excel is important in all departments' classes except Economics; PowerPoint is most important for Marketing, Business 230, and Economics classes; Integration is very important for Business 230, and it is somewhat important for Economics and Marketing classes; Access is somewhat important for Marketing classes.