A Review on CSC Student Computer Literacy Programme
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 |
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:
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Level of difficulty
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Usefulness of the course, teaching aids, handouts and materials
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Performance and helpfulness of the instructors and helpers
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Duration of the class and practical sessions
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Suggestion for further improvement
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!