Current status and desirable prospect of using information technology in higher education: University of Mazandaran case

Current and emerging technologies have become commonplace entities in all aspects of life. They have forced changes in many aspects of our everyday activities. Education has been impacted by significant contemporary and innovative advances in technology. The aim of this article was to report the results of an investigation in which the use of new learning technologies in higher education is explored. An applied-descriptive research method was chosen for this study. The population of this study was students and faculty members in Mazandaran University. Using Morgan table and stratified random sampling, 128 faculty members and 400 students were selected. A verity of tools such as questionnaires, observations, interviews and document analysis were used for data collection. Content validity was used to determine the validity of questionnaires and the alpha coefficient was used to measure the reliability. The coefficient alpha in different parts of both questionnaires was calculated above .80. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used. The results showed that observations have shown that the amount of utilization of computer technology by students and faculty members is low, but the two groups had a very positive attitude towards information technology and they assessed their skills average. Desired situation in professors and students view included improvements infrastructures such as internet speed, wireless network, elimination of filtering, increasing educational facilities like computers and laptops, providing online information resources and digital libraries. Infrastructural, financial, management, educational policies and skill obstacles are the most basic barriers that both students and professors emphasized.