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The Government’s pledge to connect every school in Britain to the Internet by 2002 raises many questions. The impact of the Internet in schools is studied from the perspective of teachers, who are responsible for equipping children with Internet skills. It focuses on the experiences of junior schoolteachers, responsible for the children’s development in all subjects. Teachers’ views were sought through questionnaires and interviews. The results suggest that most are very positive towards the Internet. Almost all felt that it would be a useful tool in education, with over two‐thirds hailing its use as an essential skill. However, a number of problems were highlighted, such as inadequate training, limited facilities and lack of government support. Concern was also expressed over the dominance of the Internet when other information resources, such as books and CD ROMs, may be more appropriate.

Internet is a real phenomenon. This technology is being spread out in all fields of our society, including education. But Internet does not come alone; a new modus operandi is being deployed in the productive segments of our world. Presents a framework to implement Internet in K‐12 Brazilian Schools. Shows how to make Internet a pedagogical tool to leverage the cognitive skills of the pupils and to be an enabler to reengineering the productive processes within the schools. Outlines the main obstacles to implement Internet, considering the Brazilian educational scenario. Presents conclusions about the need of a new educational paradigm for the schools and how the Internet can be useful in defining it.

Focuses specifically on children’s experiences of the Internet, including the extent of their exposure to sexual, racial or other unpleasant material, how teachers view this problem, and what action schools are taking. The questionnaire survey found a higher number of children with Internet access at home than previous studies; this was regardless of the socio‐economic group. Figures of those who had seen unpleasant or offensive material were also higher than previous research has shown. Teachers’ views were also canvassed. Many staff were unaware of their schools’ Internet use policies, and had little or no training in using the Internet with children. The study concludes that more needs to be done to both meet government online targets and to address the issue of free Internet use with children’s protection. Suggestions regarding the role of librarians are offered.

Many libraries are using the Internet's World Wide Web to provide information/or library clients and others. The article begins with a brief discussion of the situation in one country, Iceland, based on a November 1995 questionnaire survey. Among other things, this Icelandic survey looked at library use of the Internet and the ways in which libraries are using the World Wide Web to provide information via a homepage. A larger Nordic study, of which this Icelandic study was part, sets the Icelandic findings in a broader context. To take this further into an international setting content analyses were carried out of the home pages of public libraries and school libraries in 13 different countries. After a short description of the methodology, the results of these analyses are presented Based on this, there is a discussion of the purposes for which a library might create a home page on the World Wide Web and of the information that might be provided through the homepage, depending on the purpose or aim. The final section of the paper deals with issues and problems associated with the creation and maintenance of a library home page.

Over the past five years, the e‐rate program has been instrumental in reducing the digital divide in America's schools. However, right from its inception, a number of controversies have surrounded the program including the right of the FCC to impose a “tax” on the telecommunications industry, the status of the Universal Service Administration Company, allegations of fraud in the allocation of funds to schools and libraries, and questions whether Internet access to schools was furthering the cause of educational equity. A number of these questions have been settled through court cases and administrative reform, but doubts about the future of the program still persist so much so that the US Congress is currently considering proposals to terminate or reform the e‐rate program. Keeping in mind these controversies and the achievements to date of the program, this paper compares a number of policy proposals that have been put forward recently. It recommends among other things that the future effectiveness of the e‐rate program may be best served by enabling a shift of funding from telecommunications access to software and content development.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the disparities in social awareness and use of the internet between urban and rural school children in the North of Vietnam.

A total of 525 pupils, aged 9-11 years old, randomly selected from seven urban and rural schools, who are internet users, participated in the study and consented to responding to a questionnaire adapted from an equivalent European Union study. A comparative statistical analysis of the responses was then carried out, using IBM SPSS v21, which consisted of a descriptive analysis, an identification of personal self-development opportunities, as well as issues related to pupils’ digital prowess and knowledge of internet use and internet safety, including parental engagement in their offspring’s online activities.

The study highlights the fact that children from both the urban and rural regions of the North of Vietnam mostly access the internet from home, but with more children in the urbanized areas accessing it at school than their rural counterparts. Although children from the rural areas scored lower on all the internet indicators, such as digital access and online personal experience and awareness, there was no disparity in awareness of internet risks between the two sub-samples. It is noteworthy that there was no statistically significant gender difference towards online activities that support self-development. In relation to safe internet usage, children are likely to seek advice from their parents, rather than through teachers or friends. However, they are not yet provided with an effective safety net while exposing themselves to the digital world.

Although the Vietnamese national curriculum on the computer science subject does not explicitly cover the use of the internet and its related aspects, the majority of children who took part in this study claimed to have used the internet in their learning activities. This emphasises the urgent need for the Ministry of Education and educators in the country to not only improve information and communication technology facilities in schools, but also to revise the computer science curriculum in order to provide a supportive environment for learning development and collectively advocate the dynamics of internet use in order to ensure safe access and use by the children.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the level of awareness and utilisation of the internet for academic research and learning among level 400 (final year) students of Ghana's oldest business school.

The study utilised a cross‐sectional survey approach because it was restricted to final year students in the 2003–2004 year graduating class. The study also employed a convenience sampling technique and was executed by means of questionnaire administration and personal interviews. The final year students were asked to fill the questionnaires before a business policy lecture. The basic research instrument used in this research was a structured questionnaire with both open and close ended questions. Apart from questionnaires, in‐depth interviews with the respondents were also conducted with the respondents because we felt that because we were dealing with a research that had to do with technology, there could be latent issues that could only be uncovered by open discussions. Data were analysed and presented by means of simple descriptive statistics.

Developing countries, especially in sub‐Saharan Africa, are often rich in the resources of people and staffing, if not in material resources. The promotion of information literacy is essentially dependent on using people differently, that is to better effect, not on injecting more resourcing into under‐funded services (although this is also important in many regards). Authorities at teaching universities, including lecturers, and heads of departments, must, as a matter of urgency, adopt mechanisms for creating better information skills and internet usage awareness among the students. This should focus on what the internet is, the services available through the internet, and the basic skills required to use the internet. This policy is not limited by resourcing, it is simply a new way to better use the richest resource of developing nations, the people and their talents.

Owing to the exploratory nature of the research, the results cannot be generalised with certainty. The research however gives pointers to gaps in the internet use propensities of business students in Ghana's business school and an internet education policy has to be instituted immediately to properly prepare students for an increasingly online Ghanaian business environment.

The University of Ghana Business School should move towards the setting up of instructional labs. These labs should work in close association with the school's library to ensure that students are properly trained on business, teaching and research uses of the internet.

One of the first studies focussing on business students at the disadvantaged end of the global digital divides which regards skills training rather than resourcing as a key issue in information usage.

The Mankato (MN) public school district has created a districtwide computer network which allows all its staff and students full Internet access. Discusses a snapshot of the work‐in‐progress. Includes the goals, scope, and history of the project; provides a technical overview and cost analysis; and projects future direction. Concludes with some suggestions for other educators who are considering similar projects.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overall insight into the factors which undermine safe internet access for students. Safer internet access for students is an issue raised during recent years as the web becomes increasingly more accessible to children. However, recent research studies and initiatives demonstrated a number of potential online risks for students. To be able to protect children from potentially hazardous content it is first necessary to have a good understanding of the existing online threats.

Initially, prior works on online safety problems for children are reviewed and a list of online risks is assembled based on the previous studies and on information gathered from web sites dedicated to safer internet access. Then, based on this listing, an access log of unsupervised internet access of high school students is analyzed to understand which of these risks can be identified.

The review of previous works on the topic of safer internet access produces a list of diverse problems for unsupervised internet access for children. The results of the log files evaluation show that several of the identified online risks existed in the students' visited sites and that the students are able to bypass the applied restrictions to visit their preferred sites.

The list of online risks can be used by researchers, teachers, parents, educational technologists, web designers, school administrators and libraries to obtain a clearer view of the internet safety issues. Further, this list could be used for directing future research projects on the social consequences of internet usage for children.

Providing high levels of service quality to customers has become a necessity for companies to remain competitive in the marketplace. This paper reports the findings from a case study of a language school agency. As a “communication channel intermediary”, the case study firm provides a high quality service to customers located upstream (Spanish immersion schools), as well as downstream (students) in its supply chain. The key determinant of service quality that both of these groups use in evaluating customer service is the communication of accurate and timely information. Service quality provided to student customers is primarily facilitated through the use of the Internet, while Spanish immersion school customers rely on telephone communication, e‐mail, and in‐person visits. Implications for this dual‐direction customer focus and the use of the Internet in the service transaction are presented.