Sara Kubik: Let's Get Serious About Online Research

We have written a few postings that mentioned some of the debate behind the academic use (or non-use) of online websites for research or as a teaching resource in higher education. While many academics openly discourage the use of websites like Wikipedia or the process of "Google'ing" a topic for research, there are some scholars who are saying that researchers should take the idea of online research seriously. Sara Kubik is an associate faculty member at University-Purdue University Fort Wayne who thinks that it could be time for Academia to take online research more seriously. According to Kubik, instead of simply forbidding the use of the Internet as a credible research tool it might be time for scholars to participate in improving the validity of online resources.

Read Kubik's article for yourself and learn about her ideas. She makes some interesting points and offers some nice insight that we think are worth reading. Here are just a couple excerpts from the piece:

"Since groundbreaking information may be delivered from a grassroots level, academics should not dismiss this type of content creation."

"While it once made sense to equate print with quality, it’s time to embrace newer forms of communication as valid. If they need academically sound forms of verification and procedures for citation, let’s get to work."