Uchenna P. Daniel Ani, Kolajo Taiwo, Emeka Ogbuju and Sunday E. Adewumi
Internet Capabilities for Effective Learning and Research: A Review
The Internet has continued to span great geographical space and generality interests. It has provided enough space for social interaction and information exchange. It is hard to imagine a world without the internet. Like other fields of human endeavours, the internet is no doubt revolutionizing the act of researching, especially in the sciences. Regardless of any viewpoint, research outlines formal, methodical and rigorous processes, specifically the application of scientific methods of problem recognition, definition, solution development, data collection, analysis and conclusions. Expectedly, the introduction of the Internet heralded the upswing of the new soft form of learning; with the aim of achieving speedy and cost effective diffusion of knowledge. Secondly, the internet has also helped in aggregating with ease such knowledge which can be shared amongst geographically-detached partners. So, whether it involves fundamental/pure or basic distributed research, action, applied research or research and development, the internet could be effectively employed to improve and meet the limitations of information synchronization, speedy information verification, and reduce the time and the cost of conducting research. In this paper, we propose a structured step-by-step internet-assisted research model that explores known methods like web surveys, nonreactive Internetbased methods, web-based psychological testing and web-based experimenting. Theyinclude research features such as Research and Grants Acquisitions, Information Aggregation, Communication and Collaboration, Data Selection and Analysis, Publishing. Also, it involves exploring popular internet services like electronic-mail, web directories, World Wide Web (WWW), VoIP Conferencing, News/Mailing Lists, Chat Applications, File Transfer Protocols etc. The internet is surely one remarkable point for engaging various tools for research that cannot be ignored by modern day researchers.
