transmit large amounts of data. According to the project director,the new system "will focus energy and resources on the development of a new family of advanced applications to meet emerging academic requirements in research, teaching, and learning." Abuses, misinformation, plagiarism, skulduggery, junk, pornography, and scams abound on the Internet. We need to teach our students to verify the information gained from the Internet just as we teach them to verify the information obtained from documents and print sources. We have to find ways to prevent unwanted material from entering our computers. We have to insure that our academic freedom to teach, to do research, and to communicate freely with our colleagues all across the globe is not impeded. We have to make sure that the international collegiality made possible by the internet does not destroy the sometimes fragile but necessary collegial relationships with members of our own departments and university. Conclusion: The Internet may be rather disturbing to many of us used to the traditional methods of communication and research. Everything seems too fast and, in a sense, too facile. We have to come to grips with this new technology and, as scholars alive and well in the twentieth, soon to be twenty-first, century, turn it to our advantage. Although many academics refuse to use the Internet for their work, and this of course is their prerogative We simply have to realize that the Internet is here to stay, and we can use this new medium to our own advantage. So long as the focus remains for us as well as for our administrations and for our students teaching face to face. The new technologies can be used to enhance our teaching, make it more creative, impressive, and easy, and can be used to make our research more efficient and complete, but, it can never replace the face-to-face contact between professor and students, that is, the traditional university teaching environment. A place ...
