Underclassmen tote tablets throughout campus. However, the success of the tablets is in its infancy.

The Mobile Dawg Program, a $1.5 million project distributing more than 5,600 tablets to freshmen this year, could be improving retention and recruitment, though not all students use it in the same way.

“Although it has not been a perfect project, it has been very successful,” said David Crain, assistant provost and Chief Information Officer for Information and Technology.

Crain said the program has helped freshman-to-sophomore retention, which increased 8 percent for fall 2014.

Provost Susan Ford said tablets may have helped, but not tablets alone.

“I can’t absolutely say that that improvement in retention is due to any one particular thing,” she said.

Ford said some students leave the university because of financial, educational, advisement and mental health issues.

“For the ones that we can address, we’re trying lots of different ways to reach out and know what those problems are and try to help students overcome them,” she said. “Tablets help.”

Both Crain and Ford agreed tablets help recruitment efforts.

Ford said the program, as well as several on-campus computer labs, attracts students of low socioeconomic status to the university who would not otherwise have access to technology.

“If we were Princeton, every student might walk in with a computer purchased by mommy or daddy that’s top-of-the-line with all the latest gizmos on it,” she said. “That’s not SIU.”

New freshman enrollment increased by 13 percent for fall 2013, and nearly 5 percent for fall 2014, according to a report by Linda Hubbs, the IT educational coordinator.

Students’ thoughts about tablets and their uses vary.

Crain said in a survey his department coordinated, 31 percent of respondents said the tablet program was a factor in their decision to attend SIU.

More than 5 percent of students said it was a major factor.

Seventy-one percent use them for homework and to access electronic textbooks and labs, and 61 percent use them to watch videos and listen to music.

Forty-seven percent use them for social media and 25 percent to use them play games.

Crain said the tablets’ primary use is for electronic textbooks and homework, but it is important for students to use them for fun to help integrate the tablets into their everyday lives.

“We want them to use it as if it were their own device, to make their tablet their go-to computing resource,” he said.

Crain said freshmen would save $300 on books if they downloaded ones for core classes, such as English 101 and 102, Math 101, 107, and 108, Communication Studies 101 and University College 101.

Not all students use their tablets.

“I haven’t used it once since the first two weeks of school,” said Eli Scherer, a sophomore from Anna studying German and international studies.

Scherer said the first two tablets he received had battery and synchronization issues. He said it took two weeks for him to receive a third, working one.

Scherer said he was unable to attend training workshops about the tablets during the first weeks of school because he was without one for so long.

“I was really confused by it,” he said.

Karrie Sacketos, a freshman from Skokie studying radio television, said she uses her tablet daily.

She said her laptop and cell phone broke at the beginning of the semester, and she used her tablet to communicate through Facebook Messenger and other social media.

Sacketos said she likes how the tablets are compatible with many smart phone applications.

“I was able to have that same concept and not feel so disconnected being far away from home,” she said.

Sacketos said she uses her tablet to type papers and search the Internet. She said she downloaded electronic textbooks for her English 101 course, and would download texts for other courses if they were available.

“It’s really convenient because the ones they do offer online, we don’t have to carry them around anymore,” he said.

Sacketos said she dislikes the low storage space on tablets. She said her tablet is nearly full after writing English and other course papers for less than a full semester.

“That’s crazy because they’re supposed to last us through the four years of college,” she said. “For them to already not have disc space is ridiculous.”

Crain said university email accounts offer students online cloud storage through Office 365, which is why the tablets have such low storage space.

He said the university will continue to purchase tablets with the minimum hard drive space to save money.

Marissa Novel can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @marissanovelDE or at 536-3311 ext. 268.