Poweshiek Leadership Program, 1997

Using the Internet wisely

Part 1: What the Internet is

• Electronic mail. If you have access to a computer that is connected to the Internet, you can send messages to other people who have similar access. Such messages are typically delivered in minutes (within the U.S., usually in just a few seconds), regardless of length. Note: Electronic mail is not private -- the administrator of any of the dozen or more computer systems through which a given message is transmitted could record or copy it, and it would be legal for him to do so, though in practice only the National Security Agency and a few similar groups bother to inspect the traffic closely.

• Usenet. If you have access to a computer that is connected to the Internet and provides the Usenet service, you can read and contribute to any of several thousand newsgroups -- ongoing conversations, specialized by topic, open to all Internet users. Some typical newsgroups are rec.arts.disney (for fans of the Walt Disney Company's animated features), soc.culture.vietnamese (for discussions of Vietnamese culture and institutions), ia.gov.house (for comments and information about the Iowa House of Representatives), and comp.graphics.apps (for discussion of computer-graphics applications). A typical newsgroup receives perhaps seventy new messages a day, which are accessible to anyone who wants to read them; in most newsgroups, anyone who wants to post a reply can do so. (About five percent of newsgroups are ``moderated,'' meaning that someone scans the replies and suppresses those that are irrelevant, unhelpful, or rude.)

• File transfer. If you have access to a computer that is connected to the Internet, you can make copies of files stored and made available on other computers that are similarly connected. The transfer process may take a few seconds for a small file, or several minutes for a large one. The kinds of files that are made available in this way include public documents, course materials for college, high-school, and middle-school teachers, scientific databases, computer graphics and clip art, etc.

• The World Wide Web. If you have access to a computer that is connected to the Internet and provides a ``document browser,'' such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, you can examine documents -- text and pictures -- that have been made public by other Internet users. Think of it as a library made up of documents contributed by their authors. It's very uneven in quality, naturally; the subject catalogues and indexes of key words are incomplete and sometimes inaccurate, but the documents are elaborately and conveniently cross-indexed, so that it's possible to pursue a line of inquiry through a succession of documents with great ease.

• It is international. Although historically many of the precursors of the Internet were developed in the United States and some of the discoveries that made it possible were made in American universities and research laboratories, the Internet is open to users without regard to nationality and is widely used in dozens of countries all over the world. Often there is no way for one to determine the nationality of an e-mail correspondent or of the author of a document on the World Wide Web.

• It is robust and adaptable. One of the main precursors of the Internet was a military-communications network that was designed to ensure that computers in various military bases around the world would be able to communicate with one another even if a large fraction of them were disabled or destroyed in a war. The Internet has inherited the property of being able to reconfigure itself dynamically, to re-route communications so as to avoid computers that have been shut down, removed, damaged, subjected to censorship by local governments, and so on.

• It is anarchic. There is no central authority for the Internet. There is no organization that sets Internet policy. The Internet is not the creature of any government, not a company or corporation, not a formal institution of any kind; the power structure is almost completely decentralized. The Internet is sustained by the good will and consensus of the individual computer professionals that contribute to it and by the money and equipment of the governments, corporations, and other institutions that benefit from its existence.

Part 2: How Grinnell College uses the Internet

• Admission. Our Office of Admission maintains a World Wide Web site where prospective students and their parents can find out about the College and start the application process.

• Courses. Some of the professors make handouts, exercises, and even examinations for their courses available on the World Wide Web or through file transfer.

• Electronic mail. Grinnell College's electronic-mail systems are integrated with the Internet and are extensively used, by students, faculty, and staff, for communication both on and off campus.

• Libraries. Like many college, university, and public libraries, the Grinnell College Libraries have made their card catalogue accessible over the Internet. They also provide other library services, such as a form for acquisition requests, available on line.

• Public relations. Many of the College's administrative offices, faculty, staff, and students have contributed biographical information about themselves to the World Wide Web. The College has its own ``front-door page'' and provides an on-line directory.

• Workshops. From time to time, we conduct workshops using the Internet for teachers and other members of the community.

Part 3: Some advice for Internet users

The specific advice that I'd like to pass along is mainly about attitude:

• Try to use the Internet constructively rather than exploitatively. For example, if you want to sell a product on the Internet, it makes sense to develop an advertisement and publish it on the World Wide Web, and to provide the location of the advertisement to the indexing services. However, potential customers would be extremely put off if you used e-mail to send the same advertisement to thousands of unsuspecting recipients or posted it to every Usenet newsgroup you could think of. Many Internet users value their time very highly and resent wasting it on junk mail; it is not uncommon for an Internet user to have a ``fool file'' that keeps track of senders of junk mail and silently discards (unread) any further mail that arrives from the same source.

• Think globally -- people from everywhere will see anything that you post to Usenet or publish in a World Wide Web document. Communicating with people all over the world is a great opportunity -- but it carries the risk of seeming parochial or irrelevant if you think only in terms of the United States.

• Share what you're in the best position to know with other Internet users who might be interested. In your public communications, establish a reputation for fairness and openness. Don't spread misinformation -- unfortunately, hoaxes, urban legends, and various kinds of crank foolishness) are all abundant on the Internet -- don't make the problem worse by repeating falsehoods.

• Not everything that is published and accessible on the Internet is beneficial, useful, pleasant, and wholesome. The best course is to ignore anything you don't like. There's no central authority to complain to, and censorship efforts are worse than useless, since the Internet simply routes communications around them.

This document is available on the World Wide Web at

http://www.math.grin.edu/~stone/events/plp-talk/

John David Stone (stone@math.grin.edu)