Peder Saether Symposium (March 9-10, 2000)

Dr. Charles Crook Abstract

Home | About | Background | Program & Proceedings | Participants | Readings

CSHE > Events > Peder Saether Symposium > Program & Proceedings > Dr. Charles Crook Abstract

Distributed Computing and the Re-mediation of Study Practices on a Traditional Campus
Dr. Charles Crook, Department of Human Sciences, Loughborough University, United Kingdom

This paper will summarise some findings from a study of students' use of computers that are networked into their study bedrooms at a traditional British campus university. Matched groups of students with and without access to such facilities were compared in relation to their use of IT and campus resources. In addition, we have taken complete system logs from a sample of student PCs: this record provides a unique snapshot of actual patterns of use. Results suggest that traditional study practices are fairly resilient to IT influence at the level of campus infrastructure resources. On the other hand, there is evidence of distinctive patterns of study being re-mediated at the "desktop" level, or level of private study.