Impacts of an Integrated Information Center on Faculty End-Users: A Qualitative Assessment

s (AB) UM DP RA Other—FirstSearch (OT/F) UO HB First time used was to settle a bet—has used ever since * He is very driven by habit. Once he gets into habits, he does not seem to question his methods at all. whether or not to utilize a new technology. Table 5 makes it clear how often interviewees noted that fit was a significant determinant of use. The interviews indicate, moreover, that participants asked themselves two even more basic questions when they developed a ‘‘fit’’ argument for their technology choices. First of all, they asked themselves if a given technology allowed them to accomplish the task. They next asked whether that technology was the best technology for that particular task. Since participants were being asked about multiple technologies that could perform the same task, the second question was clearly the more profound of the two. The strong impression formed by the data in Table 5 was further reinforced by statements in the interviews themselves in which individuals indicated that they, indeed, did match technology to the requirements of the task at hand and chose the technology that suited the TABLE 5. Percentage of times reasons were mentioned. Percentage of time Reasons for use mentioned* Fit 82.8 Social norms 7.1 Facilitating conditions Availability 16.7 Cost 5.1 Habit 10.1 * Percentages are of the total number of times that a reason could have been mentioned. Total number Å number of technologies 1 number of subjects. Number of feasible reasons Å 243. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE—May 1997 469 / 8n1a$$1033 04-04-97 16:29:25 jasba W: JASIS it is perhaps not entirely surprising that rational thinking about fit-to-task would be so pervasive. Facilitating Conditions Facilitating conditions were also significant determinants of use. Two aspects of facilitation, accessibility and cost, will be explored. Consistent with Culnan (1984, 1985) and others, accessibility of technology had a clear impact on participants’ proclivities to use technology. Technologies that were available in the respondents’ offices were used much more frequently than technologies that had to be sought out in other locations. This was true even when the remote technology had substantially more capabilities than the readily accessible desktop technology. A typical remark was: ‘‘Well, the fact that I can get right into it from my PC relatively easily, and the fact that I can just hit print screen. That encourages [my use of the technology.]’’ The second aspect of facilitating conditions is cost. Perhaps as a function of the university environment, where faculty and students are not as fully aware of budget constraints as in a for-profit organization, cost was mentioned much less frequently. A typical remark was: ‘‘If I really knew I needed something from somewhere, cost wouldn’t matter at all.’’