White paper overview and applications

¶ … research assistance companies including the creation of new education markets, the streamlining of research methods and the financial benefits to students, teachers and the staff members of the research companies.

In this White Paper, we will argue for the growing importance of research assistance businesses. Firstly, the emergence of these companies is a positive development because they create new markets by turning the process of learning into a commodity exchange, something that will grow the economy. Secondly, research assistance companies improve the quality of research and writing. Because these businesses exist in the private sector, they naturally do a more efficient job than researchers in the bloated and redundant bureaucracies found in universities and colleges.

The technological boom of the past four decades has created a new world for industrialized nations. With the click of a mouse button one is now able to make purchases, reserve travel plans, manage stock folders and chat with people around the globe. It is an exciting era and one that has opened doors never before dreamed possible.

With the Internet has come the advantage of speedy research. Today, with a mouse and a computer one can examine and research any topic imaginable as if one had every library in the world at one's front door. While the potential is there for cheating, the research assistance businesses that have been exploding in growth for the past decade serve a valuable purpose as well. Those companies provide the creation of new education markets, the ability to streamline research and benefits for students, teachers and the many global staff members of the companies.

What They Are research assistance company is one in which many resources are gathered together in one venue that can be electronically accessed.

When one needs to access these sites one pays a fee that is charged either monthly or annually to one's credit card and once it is processed they have access to the site.

The site then provides thousands or millions of full text articles and textbooks for students to examine and use for their research needs.

The benefits to such sites include accessibility, 24-hour availability of materials, a more broad arranged and variety of resources at one's finger tips and time saving abilities.

Before the advent and explosion of such research assistance sites students had to personally go to libraries to access their resources, which meant going during the times the libraries were open. If a student worked, or had classes during those hours the student had to decide whether to go to the library and call out of work or class, or attend their commitment and miss out on the chance to properly research their topic.

Today, because of the online availability of research assistances companies the student can conduct his or research at times that are convenient (Graham, 2001).

The next benefit of such companies is the wide range of material that they provide. When one wants to research a topic online one is able to access millions of full text previously published newspaper, journal and magazine articles with the click of the mouse through High Beam Research Company.

Questia offers similar services but goes an additional step and provides full length textbooks on the site (Graham, 2001).

In addition, Questia has an array of research assistant tools that the student can use to format his or her bibliography, select and copy direct passages to quote in their paper, bookmark areas of books that they will use in their paper but cite as a paraphrase.

The research assistance companies allow topics or interests to be typed into a search engine and they bring forth all of the various articles, books and informative information that they carry on that topic. With one touch a student can access the New York Times, several published peer reviewed journal articles and many textbooks (Graham, 2001).

This allows the student to produce the best possible research product because he or she has access to worldwide materials and is not limited by geographic boundaries.

Financial Benefits

The advent of research assistance companies have moved education toward a private industry which means providing healthy competition in the market. This in turn forces the companies to work hard at providing the best product possible. The winners of course are the students, the teachers and the staff that work for the research assistance companies worldwide.

Students benefit from the commodity element of research assistance companies because they are the benefactors of the product. They are given opportunities to choose the best company and the companies work hard to attract their business by providing the best possible materials for them to draw from in their research.

In short the industry has exploded into a healthy commodity market and through that market the students using the services are benefiting.

The research assistance business has generated conditions for additional markets to emerge which in turn creates an environment by which the cognitive process of learning becomes a market.

Some of the new markets that research assistance companies provide are online universities, individual learning opportunities and of course employment for those who work in these areas as well as directly for the research companies (Graham, 2001).

The concept of Questia was to put a library online," Questia CEO Troy Williams said. "Even when I was at Harvard -- which had an awesome library -- many of the books that I wanted were checked out or missing. "Oftentimes, when I wanted to use the library for research, it would be closed. It just made sense to put the library online and available all the time (Graham, 2001)."

Questia was founded in 1998 and has been booming since the first day its doors were opened (Graham, 2001).

Boasting more than 35,000 books online and more newspaper articles and peer reviewed journal articles Questia has successfully made the move toward privatizing education and making several new markets in the field of education.

You can save your paper online, so you can go to different computers on campus and work without even having to carry a floppy disk around," Williams added. "It is such a huge timesaver, especially now, when students are writing papers for midterms," Ann Brimberry, director of public relations for Questia, said. "The response we get from our customers is incredible. Without a doubt, they have nothing but good things to say," Brimberry said, adding the technology being pioneered by Questia is the wave of the future (Graham, 2001)."

Librarians around the world have been hired and are paid to help customers who may search for something obscure or have trouble using the search engines.

Each book on Questia has been copyright processed, and then placed online.

Before launching the company, Questia undertook surveys to predict how successful the service could be. According to their research, 70% of college students do not live on campus and must travel to libraries, while 10% take online classes. In addition, 75% of students own their own computer and 90% have access to the Internet, with 66% going online at least once a day. Students average 8.1 hours per week online and 43% of students cite research as the main reason for their Internet use (Graham, 2001)."