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A Review
on CSC Student Computer Literacy Programme
By
Elisa Ng
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Apart
from staff courses, the Computing Services Centre (CSC) also organises
computer short courses tailor-made for all CityU students. This
series of courses, known as the “Student Computer Literacy
Programme”, is held throughout each academic year and priority
is given to the first year students. The programme aims at helping
students to acquire basic computer skills. It is a voluntary scheme
and is free of charge. Individual enrolments can be made by students,
while block enrolment through a department is also possible.
The following is the list of courses
being run:
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Chinese
Input Method - Chang Jei
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CityLink
Plus - The CityU Dial-up Facility
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Design
Your Internet Home Page - MS FrontPage
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Introduction
to CorelDRAW
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Introduction
& Advanced MS Excel
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Introduction
to MS PowerPoint
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Introduction
to MS Windows
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Introduction
& Advanced MS Word
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Introduction
to SPSS for Windows
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MS Office
Supplementary Applications
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PolyLink
II & Information Systems
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Besides the above, the CSC also provides
mix and match courses catering for individual departments. The
total number of enrolments in 1999-2000 was 13,465 for 186 sessions.
To apply for the literacy courses,
students can submit their applications electronically. This electronic
system provides not only an effective way for application but
also helps us to determine the priorities of accepting applications,
to inform students about the application results and to keep track
of students’ enrolment history. Another electronic system
for roll taking has also been developed to help control the class
size as sometimes students attend the classes without any prior
enrolment.
A third electronic system was developed
to gather evaluation and feedback from students. Students can
submit their response through the workstations in class instead
of filling the printed evaluation forms. This system enables us
to get an evaluation report quickly. It provides rapid analysis
on how our students perceive the courses. For each course, the
system collects the feedback on:
From the evaluation report, it shows
that many students find the literacy courses to be very useful.
In general, the content and the level of difficulty of the courses
are appropriate. It also shows that our instructors and helpers
are very willing to offer assistance in classes. The overall rating
of the literacy courses is very good. This evaluation report also
helps us to analyse the needs of our students. Nowadays our students
are more computer-literate. The demand on more advanced courses
in MS Office and Web design is increasing. The CSC will design
more appropriate courses to suit the needs of our students.
Our students gave valuable suggestions
for further improvement during the recent years. We took the advice
and improvement was made, such as providing English classes for
students who were non-Cantonese speaking (less than one percent
of the student population) in 1999-2000. At the same time, a new
Computer Literacy Programme Web site was developed for information
on course schedule, material download (e.g. course outline, handout
and PowerPoint slides), enrolment method and successful applicants
list.
Initiated by Department of Marketing,
the CSC started to print certificates for students who took our
computer courses. In a way, this will encourage more students
to join the literacy courses in the future.
As the CSC is always aiming for the
best, we shall try our best to improve the quality of the literacy
courses. The task of providing up-to-date course handouts (in
order to catch up with the fast growing technology) and improving
the teaching aids would be carried out in the future. May attending
the literacy courses be one of the best studying experience for
our students in the CityU!
