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Interaction as a Source of Information for Managerial Decisions

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2019

Abstract

Introduction In 2018 Silesian University in Opava was interested in ways how professors, administrative workers and students are using information about university from which channels they are obtaining it and how well channels suit them. The main goal was to set long term plan of bettering conditions and to adapt information strategy to the results.

Method There was conducted a research which consisted of qualitative and quantitative parts and was concerned with information behavior and communication of students, teachers and administrative workers of Silesian University in Opava towards university and used systems. As the qualitative part of the research first were used group interviews.

Based on results from group interviews there were constructed three types of questionnaire which addressed each group of (university systems) users respectively. Analysis Group interviews took place throughout the year 2018.

Student groups were constructed from students based on their connection to faculty and to institute. Only students from higher year of study were selected as freshmen do not know about all the information channels the university is using.

There were present representatives of all of the institutes of all of the faculties of Silesian University in Opava. Some of them were distant students.

In case of professors we informed leaders of all of the institutes about the matter. Then we have let them choose one representative who would be able to give particular information about the topic.

Then we picked representatives of all the administrative departments, we assorted them to groups and interviewed them all in phases. Based on the results from all of these interviews we constructed three types of questionnaire which were sent to the respondents at the beginning of the year 2019.

Results From results of both surveys (quantitative and qualitative) we gained a good picture of how professors and students from particular institutes communicate. We found out that the style of communication and tools vary a lot from institute to institute.

As matter of fact each of the institute has their own information habitat in the university systems and information channels. We also found out that the bearer of these dissimilarities are not students but professors who are used to certain systems and carry them over to the new generation.

We also found out that even though the systems and channels used vary, students do not vary in their needs so much because they are members of the same generation and are used to same things. This applies with one exception which represent students and professors of Institute of Mathematics which diversify a lot from the rest.

The results are also a consequent to the style of teaching at particular institute. Conclusions Thanks to the results of the survey several managerial decisions could be made.

There was a new information system bought that would fulfill most of the desires of the students and that would also connect some of the functions of the information systems that were separate so far. There was also a team of programmers constructed that would secure that the rest of the requirements from students and teachers would be fulfilled.

There was also found out that the university needs a new mission which would encompass information and communication strategy and connect the mindset of people to the one goal even though the ways of achieving that goal vary.