A handful of students have been invited to volunteer in a new photo survey that instructs them to take pictures of things they like and dislike on campus.

“In the last technology survey that we administered here last fall, we discovered that 80 percent of El Camino College, Torrance campus students, have a smartphone which has a camera and email capabilities,” Irene Graff, institutional research director, said. “We thought it would be a convenient way to collect information, as well to get volunteers who are smartphone owners to be willing to do this.”

Those taking part in the survey, were invited to Room 131 of the Administration Building where Marci Myers, research analyst and survey coordinator, handed fliers with survey instructions. Myers told students that they would not be identified once the results were compiled and distributed around campus.

Graff leaned of the idea at last years the annual Association for Institutional Research (AIR) conference.. According to AIR’s website airweb.org, the conference is, “four-day (event) [and] includes more than 450 presentations by colleagues representing all sectors of higher education and an exhibit hall featuring the latest tools and resources to support data use for decision making.”

The photo survey is an altered way of asking students “what they like and don’t like about campus with out having them answer open-ended questions on a survey,” Myers said.

“We have a campus climate survey that we administer regularly that collects students’ opinion about different aspects of the college and this way we are asking them what does the college look like to you in your assessment of the good qualities and the need improvement areas,” added Graff.

Myers said this would be the first time that this type of surveying has taken place on campus.

“Pictures are a lot more powerful sometimes then just a sentence on the back of a survey,” she said.

Myers and Graff hope to gain a different perspective from survey results.

“We work inside this office, we don’t get to see the campus through the eyes of students,” Myers said. “This would be a good way to see parts of campus we might not be aware of.”

Myers added that the reason the survey has not been opened to the entire student body is because it would be difficult to manage with participants submitting 10 photos each.

“We want to see how it goes with a small pilot group,” Myers said. “If it goes successfully we might send it out to more students.”