A new survey on the use of information technology at colleges highlights growing efforts to limit certain types of Internet activities, such as peer-to-peer file trading, and indicates a surge in the number of students who own computers.

Educause, a higher-education technology group, conducted the survey, whose findings appear in the "Core Data Service 2003 Summary Report."

The results, released this week, are based on data from 832 colleges during the 2002-3 fiscal year, which for most colleges ended on June 30, 2003. Comparisons of data for 2002-3 and the previous year are based on information from 510 institutions that completed both years' surveys.

Peter DeBlois, a spokesman for Educause, said survey data show that the percentage of colleges that restrict certain types of network use, such as limiting the amount of peer-to-peer file sharing, increased from 64.9 to 70.2. Such file sharing is often used to illegally trade copyrighted movies and music. Colleges that restrict network use only in specified places, such as in dormitories but not in academic buildings, jumped from 40.8 percent to 47.5 percent.

The latest survey shows that the average percentage of students owning computers was 65 percent, up from 53 percent the previous year. The results also reveal that students at private colleges are 1.4 times as likely to own a computer as are students at public institutions. Educause attributed that difference to the relative affluence of students enrolling in private colleges.

Other survey findings show that 80 percent of colleges make use of wireless technology in classrooms, up from 49 percent in the 2002 fiscal year. In addition, 19 percent of campuses use "voice over Internet protocol," a technology that allows telephone conversations over the Internet. That figure is up from 13 percent in 2002.