Why Professors Love (and Loathe) Technology 113
dougled writes "A survey of 4,500 college professors (and campus technology administrators) reveals what faculty members think of digital publishing (they like it, but don't do it very much), how much they use their campus learning management systems (not nearly as much as their bosses think), and how digital communication has changed their work lives (they're more productive, but far more stressed)."
working with them.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can tell you, working with some very smart profs, that they fall into the exact same classes that you find anywhere else.
You have people that are unreasonable (wanting things to be perfect in an imperfect world), you have people that can't apply basic common sense to using their computer (someone today, for instance, that they can have unlimited disk space and has magical thinking about the situation), people with poor problem solving skills, oldsters whom the world changed around and can't deal with it, people that can't use google, etc. etc...
So I guess what I am saying is that sometimes I wonder if singling them out as a class has any use at all. They're simply people.
Re:working with them.... (Score:0, Insightful)
Pretty much all social progress requires an older generation dying. In 30 years it will all be electronic.
Re:Why do Doctors hate technology? (Score:3, Insightful)
As a doctor who has been involved in the start of multiple electronic records systems in multiple clinics and hospitals, I can answer your question partially. Really it's two reasons:
1. Privacy. In some ways it's easier to lock down paper charts than networked records systems. You have a chart, one person has that chart at a time, and it's in one physical location. Networks get hacked, electronic charts can be viewed by multiple people at the same time, can be copied and pasted into emails readily, etc.
2. Proprietary lock-in. The rush toward electronic records is heading us to one of the biggest fuck-overs in history because many hospitals rely on proprietary software for their charts (e.g., EPIC). It doesn't have to be this way--there are open-source records system, and the VA system has and is working on perfectly usable open records systems. Most of the time, though, that's not what administrators do. If you use paper charts, you can write on them with whatever pen you want. You can put them in whatever file cabinet you want. You can put whatever paper you want into them. Now, tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people's hospital charts are being put into a proprietary format that's locked to a specific vendor.
Electronic record systems are great and simple in theory, but they're subject to the same problems as any other software, and the stakes are higher in some ways when you're talking about serious medical conditions for huge numbers of people. Imagine all your concerns about app store control, but now it's tied to whether or not someone needs brain surgery.
Digital is great, but not *always* better than analogue. I wish people wouldn't assume that.