The internet's rapid adoption and implications for education and academic integrity

¶ … Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s who saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields (Howe, 2005). In 1969, it was then known as the ARPANET and was brought online by Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Initially, four major computers at universities in the southwestern U.S. (UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UCSB, and the University of Utah) had allowed into their institutes. The Internet, or simply the Net, is the publicly accessible worldwide system of interconnected computer networks. The Internet also represents the foundation for a growing number of completely new business models as new approaches continue to be identified for ways to add value to products and services in an online setting. According to Eger (2006), "Internet usage statistics point to one billion users worldwide, with a growth rate of 15% per month. The World Wide Web, the Internet's most popular component, is being integrated into the marketing, information, and communications strategies of almost every major corporation, educational institution, charitable and political organization, community service agency, and government entity in the developed world" (p. 18). While the introduction of the telephone and television have been embraced by the citizens of the world, the diffusion of these technologies required a relatively lengthy amount of time. By sharp contrast, the Internet has exploded on the global scene in unprecedented ways. For example, Eger also notes that, "No previous communications advance has been adopted by the public so widely so rapidly" (p. 18). In this dynamic environment, opportunities abound of course, but there are some profound challenges involved in competing in an increasingly globalized marketplace that must be taken into account as well. Likewise, educators at all levels are faced with the dual-edged sword of technological innovations that offer new approaches to the delivery of educational services but which have also fundamentally transformed the traditional relationship between classroom teacher and students, particularly in adult educational settings. Moreover, the combination of powerful word processing programs and the amount of information on the Internet that can be easily accessed and integrated into research projects has made academic integrity a focus of a growing number of studies in recent years as well. These issues are examined further in this study using the methodology described below.

Methods