Definition of The Research Problem

A visionary and philosopher of Internet, Turkle (1995) writes,

The computer has become even more than tool or mirror: We are able to step through the looking glass. We are learning to live in virtual worlds. We may find ourselves alone as we navigate virtual oceans, unravel virtual mysteries, and engineer virtual skyscrapers. But increasingly, when we step through the looking glass, other people are there as well. (p. 9)

More and more people are connecting onto various computer providers either through their colleges, businesses, or local hosts. Because of this increase in popularity, educators are beginning to use Internet as a tool for composition delivery.

The Internet

Internet is a communications system that was developed early in 1960s as a proposal from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), part of the U.S. Department of Defense along with the RAND Corporation to create a network of networks that could survive a nuclear attack. According to Sterling's "Short History of the Internet" (1993), the RAND proposal hypothesized a communication network with no centralized point. Rather, Internet would be made up of "nodes" (more or less the equivalent of a single computer) that would each have equal authority and ability to create, pass along, and receive information to other nodes. Woolly (1996) remarked, "This ARPAnet was originally designed to allow ARPA researchers to share data but was increasingly used to exchange messages, which in turn helped develop a sense of community between the geographically scattered centres they worked in" (p. 7). Soon this communication network, the Internet, expanded outward to span the entire globe. In 1974, about 62 hosts existed in the U.S. and Europe as part of ARPANET. "The theory of an electronic communication network functioning without a center and capable of withstanding a nuclear attack had thus become a reality, although it was surprisingly used from the very beginning for a variety of less than 'official' purposes" (Krause, 1996). However, the popularity of electronic mail was unanticipated by its designers.

People who were not connected to ARAPNET saw the potential for such a communication device, so more software was developed and more people came online, using the existing phone lines and a piece of machinery (computer hardware), called a modem, to connect their computers to the host computers. The ARPANET used Network Control Protocol as its transmission protocol from 1969 to 1982 allowing for only short text messages; however, this was soon replaced by a faster more friendly type of protocol, Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, TCP/IP, which allowed for faster transmission and larger messages (LaQuey, 1990, p. 194; Quarterman, 1990, p. 141). Previous to TCP/IP protocol, information was packaged, then sent from one node to another until it eventually ended up where it belonged. TCP/IP changed this. According to Kroll (1994), "Internet developers, responding to market pressures, began to put their IP software on every conceivable type of computer" (p. 13), thus enabling access to computers of all types.

By the mid-to-late 1980s, government and commercial organizations became involved with the Internet. These entities built systems of high-speed "backbone" super-computers, so that more users could connect and make use of the system. By 1989, nearly every university and government became connected. Thus it grew from the initial four "hosts" (i.e., computers that have an Internet "address" and can create, receive, and/or pass along packets of information) in 1969 to over well over 100,000 by 1989. As a consequence of this open system, the "Internet" as we know it today began to exist (Zakon, 1996). Because of the conglomerate beginnings neither businesses nor governments regulate or control the Internet; however, many large institutions (commercial, government, international, military, educational, etc.) and small entities (down to the individual who has set up his or her desktop computer as an autonomous "host") guide the system:

No one really planned it this way. Its users made the Internet that way because they had the courage to use the network to support their own values, to bend the technology to their own purposes. To serve their own liberty. Their own convenience, their own amusement, even their own idle pleasure [sic]. When I look at the Internet -- that paragon of cyberspace today -- I see something astounding and delightful. It's as if some grim fallout shelter had burst open and a full-scale Mardi Gras parade had come out. (Sterling, 1993)

Because the Internet has no actual physical dimension, it has caused a paradigm shift in the way we communicate and interact. Some visionaries, such as McLuhan (1964) foresaw this:

After three thousands years of explosion, by means of fragmentary and mechanical technologies, the Western world is imploding. During the mechanical ages, we had extended our bodies in space. Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned. (p. 5)

On the Internet, no boundaries exist; a person may reside in Spokane, WA; she can also belong to community of writers whose members have other physical locations such as Australia, Argentina, Korea, or Greenland. Hierarchy is also irrelevant if she has access to a computer with a network connection, either her own modem or through a LAN (local area network) where she is employed. Either way, once she is "connected" she has equal status to all the other Internet users.
Internet patrons choose their own domains and communities; they stake claims according to their own interests. The only limitations Internet users confront are the resources available from the providers they must access to engage their connection.

The resources at hand depend of the type of connection a provider has. Each provider is like a small post office. The provider purchases bandwidth from a host machine. Then space and services are rented out to those who wish to access the Internet. Unless specified, most providers will supply ftp, telnet, chat, newsgroups and email services to their users. These various functions allow different types of interaction between the host computers. The most basic features of the Internet allow connectivity and access to other host computers connected to the Internet. Users connect to other host computers with simple commands (depending on the software and type of connection) and work on a computer at a remote location.

In order to understand the draw of online education, we only have to look at some recent demographics. As of June 1999, it was estimated there were 179 million people online (NUA, 1999). Other statistics taken from the Graphic, Visualization, and Usability (GVU) Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology (1998) show,

1. 64% of all adult users spend over ten hours a week on the Internet, accessing the Net one to four times daily.
2. 38.5% of Internet users are female.
3. 84% of all users say the Internet is indispensable.
4. 41% of Internet users access the system from home only
5. In the 19-25 year-old age range, 49% use the Internet for activities related to education.
6. The number of people over 50 using the Internet increased from 11% in 1995 to 14% in 1997.
7. The No. 1 Net pursuit is research: 82% of those who use Internet look for information. Education is second at 75%.

Another proof of the growth concerns domains. A domain is the type of institution which hosts and provides services for Internet users. Previously seven existed (see Appendix A) with education domains prevalent. At present, "com" domains are prevalent on the Internet, meaning that more users are connecting to the Internet for reasons that are not educational. In addition, as of January of 1997, seven new domain names were offered by the Internet Society, reflecting the rapid growth of general Internet use.

[Distance Education] [Writing Educators Online] [Computers and Compostion] [Opposing Points of View] [Where Online Composition Fits] [The Need for the Study]
[Chapter I] [Chapter III] [Chapter IV] [Chapter V] [References]

Write to Jan -- jan@js.spokane.wa.us

Last Updated 10/20/01

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