Faculty Views on the Internet

The studies conducted of faculty views on the use of Internet sources in academic work are more conclusive and direct than the studies of student views. While none of the studies found for this research paper were national in scope, they do present different attitudes of faculty members across disciplines. The faculty studies presented in this section of the paper will be in chronological order, to get an idea of how faculty response to Internet use has changed.

Toward the beginning of the use of the Internet as a reference source, there were few studies presenting the faculty side and there was a lot of anecdotal evidence and personal experience presented in the literature. Steven Knowlton (1997)states that

“They (faculty) are concerned that they Internet makes readily available so much information, much of it unreliable, that students think research is far easier than it really is. As a result, educators say, students are producing superficial research papers, full of data – some of it suspect – and little thought.” (p.18)

David Rothenberg, an associate professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology, says that “My class had fallen victim to the latest easy way of writing a paper: doing their research on the World Wide Web. (p. 59)” Rothenberg also believes that it is his responsibility to teach his students how assess sources and determine their credibility so that the quality of their work will improve (1998). Kari Boyd McBride (1998) took a positive approach to the advent of the Internet as a research tool. Even though she realizes that students no longer get their information from reliable print sources, she sees the Internet as a great opportunity to teach students how to become “better readers, writers, and thinkers (p. B6).”

In two separate articles based on a survey of faculty at colleges and universities in Alabama, Susan Davis Herring studies faculty acceptance of the Internet as a research tool. In the first article, Herring (College, 1998) contemplates two questions asked in the Alabama survey, “1. Have faculty accepted the Web as a suitable resources for their undergraduate students’ research? 2. Do faculty encourage their undergraduate students to use the Web as a resource in their course-related research assignments? (p. 253)” Herring found that the majority of faculty encourage their students to use Internet resources, whether as specifically stated by the assignment, or on their own. These faculty members, however, are also concerned with the accuracy of the information found on the Internet.

In the second article in The Journal of Academic Librarianship, about the Alabama study, Herring studies whether faculty find the Internet as an acceptable resource for their own research and does academic discipline play a role in the acceptance of the Internet as a research tool. What Herring discovered was that researchers were happy with the expanding information present on the Internet, even though they were skeptical about accuracy. As well, Herring discovered that academic discipline does play a role in the acceptance of the Internet as a research tool, science disciplines were more likely to accept research from the Internet than social science or language disciplines (1998).

In another study by Liz McDowell, faculty members were interviewed to gain their perspectives on the role of electronic information in their classes. Three areas were discussed, the concept of an electronic academic library, bringing electronic information into the classroom, and student use of electronic resources for their work. As with other studies, this study found that faculty were willing to accept some resources from the Internet, but that peer reviewed and scholarly resources were more welcome. The faculty members also expressed concern about the quality of the materials found on the Internet and about plagiarism from Internet sources (2002).

Finally, a study was conducted using faculty from a business school. The data received from this study is different from the other studies. Faculty members in the business discipline actively encourage their students to use the Internet as primary sources of information. This is due to the information that can be found on the Internet relating to business matters (Dewald, 2005).

As can be seen from the studies presented, for the most part, faculty members appear to be wary of Internet resources as reference sources for class assignments. The lone exception to this is in business classes. Also, it appears that some faculty believe that it is partly their responsibility to teach their students which types of sources are acceptable for assignments and which sources need to be evaluated for accuracy and credibility. As the Internet changes and grows, reliable resources have made their way onto the Internet. Some believe that faculty should be encouraging students to use Internet resources and teach they ways to evaluate the sources (Harmon, 2007).