Comparative study of the television facilities of nine regional University of Wisconsin campuses

Abstract

The research project was A Comparative Study of the Television Facilities of Nine Regional University of Wisconsin Campuses. The purpose of the study was to compare the facilities with an emphasis on utilization. The topic was selected because little information was known about the nature of the television facilities in the university system and no research had probed the area of utilization. The limitations of the study were inherent in the structure of the university system. The area of television facilities was another limitation, The final limitation was the choice of the fall semester, 1971 as the time of the research, A questionnaire was used to conduct the survey of the field. However, the technique of mailing the questionnaire was rejected in favor of the personal interview, The researcher secured interviews with the television director at each campus. During the course of the interview, a tour was taken of the television studios and pictures were secured as a graphic record of the facilities. Later the information was collected from the questionnaires and tabulated according to areas of reference. The hypotheses stated there would be no difference In the facilities and there would be no difference in the utilization of the television facilities, The hypotheses were incorrect. A great difference was found in the areas of space and facilities, One campus had a studio area of 440 square feet while another had two studios with an area of 3,600 square feet. The field of distribution was varied. The potential was identical for each campus when the capability of the portable videotape recorder was calculated with the existing closed-circuit, coaxial cable. One campus distributed programming via cable to ninety-five percent of the buildings while another campus relied almost exclusively on portable machines. The field of utilization was found to be just as varied as that of facilities, The criteria for utilizatfon was figured from the number of departments utilizing television, the number of videotape titles in the library, the number of hours of production for the semester sampled, and the number of man-hours expended on productions. A great variety of emphasis was found on the various campuses, The conclusions were that a great variety exists in the area of television facilities and utilization, Development was sufficient for the production of the programming the individual campuses were using. The area of utilization was no different from that of facilities, The variety existed. Recommendations were made for further study in the areas of faculty involvement and utilization.