It is just like an academic to start blaming the internet for the downfall of students, and the stereotype that all students are lazy lay abouts who will just use the internet for everything. I agree with Louise that I haven't ever seen an empty University or college library. Guess what, they are all packed with students surrounded by books! yes thats right books.
Google and wikipedia are okay for some things but always check where the information came from, most real data on wikipedia has where it came from on it. Or do what I do, check with a number of sites on the same thing, and come to your own conclusion. If your at university then you hopefully have a mind so if students decided just to use wikipedia then that is there fault and I hope it would show up in the marks.

Thomas, London,

Interesting article which raises some important points. For instance peer review does happen on the web, just in a slightly different way. There are many ways to substantiate online content and I am amazed anyone would suggest that our internet savy generation do not have these skills.
Who is this woman anyway? How do I know how valid her opinion is? I Googled her and found nothing, so in fact she fails to be credible in the internet age, because she has no peer reviews ONLINE. She seems to have not managed her online PR well at all.

I have written a more detailed post in my blog about this and the notion that we now do not just have a generation GAP but an internet VOID. If you are interested in this idea my blog can be found at www.n3wmedia.com/wordpress/

Ed, Buckinghamshire, UK

As a recent graduate, I'm happy to own up to the fact that I used Wikipedia on occasion if I needed a quick answer to a question, or brief background on an issue. Wikipedia can serve as a useful introduction to a debate as it's often a lot more concise and broadly sweeping than an academic article. However, I would never have written an essay solely relying on Wikipedia or Google-generated resources.

The library is certainly not dead yet. This was clear during exam periods, when you could barely find floor space to perch on, let alone a seat, if you got there after 9AM. I think academics perpetuating the idea that all students are idle wasters who just do a Wiki search to write their essays is quite misguided. Yes, Wikipedia has its uses. But books and academic articles are still widely used by all the students I know. Why not use the two forms of media in conjunction? It's all useful information, and anyone with half a brain can distinguish the dross from the relevant material.

Louise, Nottingham,

So basically, everyone is saying "Don't always believe what you find on the internet, the information may be inaccurate."

How can I be sure that's true?

Paul Galbraith, Glasgow, Scotland

How very true.

I have learnt to take anything written on the internet with a bag of salt.

Invevitably on the internet you will have comments posted with extremist views on just about any subject and without strong laws for slander/misrepresentation it gives amateurs carte blanche to create any fiction of their imagination to further the cause or confuse others willing to believe them.

As a starting point the web is great and for buying products it is a major benefit. However, to obtain reliable information you need to refer back to established sources such as newspapers/universities/government who have reputations to maintain.

I believe all information on the internet from individuals should come with a govt health warning!

TP, Egham, UK

LIBRARIANS have investigated, defined, promoted, and taught Information Literacy for a long time.
What saddens me is that is takes another type of faculty member to get this much attention. Librarians, who are often college/university faculty, have traditionally been ignored by teaching faculty, who believe that there is a straight line from question to answer, involving reading proper resources, and storing facts.
The point you all seem to be missing is: LEARNING IS ABOUT ASKING QUESTIONS. Remember asking your mom "Why?”

If we believe education primarily involves the pursuit of answers, then we fall into the GOOGLE TRAP.
If a 5 paragraph essay, with a conclusion, is the desired outcome, then why should we expect our students to critically engage with the material? Are we really asking them to?

Multiple, integrated, evolving research projects are called for. Students must generate substantive questions to pursue--with the aid of librarians, and guidance of teaching faculty.

Frederic, Los Angeles,

As early as seven years old, my teachers prohibited us from turning in reports based only on encyclopedia articles. We were required to use multiple sources and cite them. Later I was required to take classes in the theory of knowledge, and learned about statistical methods that let us assess valid conclusions from data.

Now that it's possible to publish so easily, children need critical assessment skills more than ever. The fact that someone starts their search on Wikipedia or Google doesn't make their knowledge less valid than if it came from a published book. While accuracy and medium are correlated, they don't have a causal relationship.

I wonder if the teacher would be opposed to students beginning their search with http://scholar.google.com which allows search of peer-reviewed scholarly articles? Or http://books.google.com?

Eloise A., San Francisco, CA, USA

You know, sometimes I think google gives better answers than academics will. Its not like academia has a perfect track record when it comes to being right.

This is not to say that you cant trust academic work, but the general attitude from academics is that academics is infallible.
Students are required to cite their work. And I'd like to think that citations are being verified. If not, then who is really at fault?

Justin, Boulder, US / Colorado

I think Ms Brabazon has confused lazy students with ignorant ones. Any recent university graduate will know that handing an essay in at the last minute full of stuff you cut and pasted off the internet is a standard part of secondary education at the moment. Students who do this then have to follow up the submission with wide eyed innocence at the lack of credibility of their source.

Andy Bendzin - I suggest a little less time spent on your 'conservative/christian view points' and a bit more on grammer (unless english is your second language in which case your doing a sterling job)

Peter Main, London, UK

Article just started to get interesting when it ended there. Media literacy... interpretive skills - absolutely! Duh!

Could fundamentals in basic education really be so lacking? Media literacy is an incredibly important research skill and life skill as it always was - before the web, as it will be after the web. In an ideal world Google would be a great tool that revealed how many points of view there are out there, how rich perspectives and opinions and how diverse facts can be.

My main beef would be that Google (rather online search) should be a feast of delicacies rather than the meat & potatoes it serves up. It's hard to penetrate a search result beneath big business. Google is a commercial solution to search and a market dominator. As a commercial solution they have sought to protect the algorithm (and their market position) and have created a field of specialist knowledge along with it. Far from democratic, search results are elite. Search results support the dominate view.

Melissa, Sydney, Australia

Good grief. Google is not the *source* of information - it is the card catalogue. Blaming Google for the quality of information found is as daft as blaming a librarian when you fail to use a library properly.

Google is deliberately non-discriminatory (and yes I know about people claiming otherwise) about the pages it list *except* via various metrics of how 'popular' the page is.

Perhaps we should make the web harder to use so that stupid people will not be able to confuse themselves so easily?

tim Rowledge, Qualicum Beach, Canada

I totally agree with this article. This is something you are dealing with even as you get older. I didn't start to get heavily into the computer till in the late 90s. The fields that are the priority in my life today I am only to discern truth for fiction by heaving an aquired knowledge that did not come from surfing the web but from sources or books that have enough credibility that therefore I can distinguish one from the other. This said however, what good is it in our days when the public school system and higher academia is used for brain washing where you are not free to think unless you align yourself with a specific paradigm acceptable in todays academia. If I as a student today would voice my conservative/christian view points, specially in regard to the myths concerning Islam and Israel I know I would be at war and probably end up with bad grades because of my world view opposing the world view of academia which is so out left or because I would frustratingly resign.

Andy Bendzin, Mechanicsburg, PA

"Peer review" is academic speak for "us"? Academics can't stand the fact that their precious knowledge can no longer be hoarded and dolled out to their favoured few who subscribe to their own prejudices. There's very little genuine free-thought in academe... it's all politically correct nonsense. Thank goodness for the internet.

Mark Sparrow, Bath Somerset,

I work for Intute <www.intute.ac.uk>, a national Internet service funded by JISC that addresses just these issues.

I agree with Professsor Brabazon that guiding students to select resources is a good staring point, but that helping them to develop Internet research skills, particularly in critical evaluation of information, is also key.

We would like to see "Internet research skills" become a standard component of degree courses, fitting well into study skills, research methods or information literacy modules.

This is happening in some university courses, but not across the board.

Here at Intute we believe that the Internet offers access to unprecidented resources that can support education and research, but that issues of information-overload, trust and quality are real concerns.

Students may well be savvy with using Internet technologies but they still need advice and guidance on finding and using Internet resources for academic work.

Emma Place, Bristol, UK

Brabazon is part of the problem if she thinks "skills" will help people be able to evaluate information. The only thing that enables that to happen is a strong knowledge base, together with logic. So the learning has to take place prior to the internet research. Computers are the worst thing to happen to education.

Liza, San Antonio,

No, the Internet is not "producing a generation of students who survive on a diet of unreliable information'" universities are.

Look, the Internet is a magnifier, and like any magnifier, it magnifies whatever one "points it at."

Here is the class she proposes (I'll save you the time): Students, if you use Wikipedia or any other such source, verify the accuracy of the information you find there.

The world moves too fast for books; reader beware.

Bob, Colorado, USA

What a pass.

I would say that spoon feeding is the problem
whether via

search engines or

copies of articles distributed by professer.

If the structure is correct in the first place then the students couldnt exploit these methods.

Also I believe another reason for the prevalence of the symptoms described is that the wrong people are attending universities.

michael coster, walton on the naze, essex

Google is billion times more powerful and useful than the most magnificient library in the world. The "dinosaurs" among us continue to fight for the survival of the old, the familiar and the obsolete. Professor Brabazon is sadly mistaken about Google and the Internet. She takes her ignorance of digital technology to new heights by banning her students from using Google and the Internet. How can a ban facilitate creative and analytical thinking in her students. What she does goes against what she preaches!

Andrew Chan, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I saddly must agree with Tara Brabazon. She is absolutely correct that googles pages are filled with either trivial or wrong answers.

It was not only yesterday I had to search more than 35 web pages before I could find a hint of the correct answer. The hint led me to the solution. I cringe all the time when reading web pages and it is not only people's postings but web pages that give incorrect data. Lucky enough it easy enough for me to distinguish right from wrong due to having a Computer Science Degree myself.

Anyone who relies on Web answers must take the time to visit at least a dozen pages to recognize right from wrong.

de~

DeDavid, Fullerton, California

Surely the rot starts earlier than university? New undergraduates arrive familiar with Wikipedia and other non-peer-reviewed sites, and with search engines - but no training in how to evaluate any of them or search out accredited sources. Given that they are encouraged to use the internet in their school studies, perhaps some guidance needs to be incorporated at this stage so as not to develop bad habits. In this cut-and-paste environment, schools should as offer guidance on the sinfulness of plagiarism too.

Amanda Hopkins, Rugby,

wikipedia can't be all that bad, i recall a cambridge student telling me last year that he got a lot of his research through wikipedia.

Vik, London,

Big Deal -how did this professor get herself into the news?

All of my lecturers, not to mention secondary school teachers, stressed the importance of provenance in sourcing information. Critically, this applies equally to printed media and the internet.

There is no use in using a book written by a left or right-wing hardliner, for example, if you want an un-biased view.

In addition, one should not lump "the internet" together with the likes of Google and Wikipedia as most important library facilities are now available via the internet -including academic journals and publications.

I think the issue here is the standard of university admissions rather than a general inability to distinguish useful sources. The only students whom I ever observed to have quoted from Wikipedia or similar, were those who should never have been allowed into university in the first place.

Linda, RICHMOND, England

For academic purposes it's crucually important to consult a wide spectrum of sources - always has been, and the advent of the internet hasn't altered that. On the other hand Wikipedia and Google are instantly accessible and have fundamentally changed the way in which the world accesses knowledge, democratising what was once the exclusive preserve of academia..

Only an ivory-towered professor could see that as a bad thing and attempt to somehow demonise it by comparison to 'white bread' (which were she maybe to make greater use of Google in particular she might realise isn't the terrible thing it's made out to be either!)

Much research and science nowadays is less about discourse than oppressive peer-reviewed 'consensus' to the point that rational argument is suppressed for political purposes. An approach to a topic isn't necessarily 'wrong' simply for failing to toe the party line.

Richard Edwards, Leeds, UK

I can see the professor's point, especially for first-year students, and of course not all statements are equally true, some are not true at all. But when you already know what you are talking about, and want to give someone else a quick overview and access to some sources, I can see nothing wrong with Wikipedia - as long as you are already in a position to evaluate the truthfulness of the article and the validity of the references and links. The last few times I used Wikipedia, it was for foreign-language poetry and for music, so that others could see the original text/music for themselves. I got all the necessary links from Wikipedia. And in this particular case, I didn't have the text/sheet music at home in printed form, although I knew them well. So, when you know what you are doing, Wikipedia is a perfectly good resource.

Julia Iskandar, London, England

The German school system has 6 scores.

McQueen Christine, Frauenchiemsee, Bavaria, Germany

I take great exception to anyone calling a professor an idiot, students stupid or undermining media studies as an academic discipline. Such comments are rude and plain wrong. As someone writing my own PhD I understand that the road to becoming a professor is long, tough and requires years of creative thinking, dedication and an original contribution to knowledge. I have in the past had the pleasure to teach undergrads, and have found them to be inspiring on a daily basis. Media studies as a subject has had a bad rep and is often misconstrued as a bunch of people running around with a camera for 3 years who’s output doesn’t meet the industry standard. Again this is absolutely not the case. It terms of critical engagement with ideas, culture, society, economics and so on, it requires a high level of creative thought and a difficult and sometimes deep understanding of complex theory.

Susan, London,

TB should know this already. You cannot develop critical thinking without getting in contact with information. They say, wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. How bad? That is up to the teachers.

ralph, toronto,

How dare Knowledge escape from the universities and go tramping around the internet! If people are allowed just to find things out and think for themselves, the professors will have to justify what they say and not merely rely on authority or 'commitment'.

Or perhaps they could put the correct version of everything on to the Web, where Google could find it, instead of locking it away behind a 'Members Only' sign?

P.S. Somebody please tell Mr Keen that the word 'media' is plural.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

Surely this is an opportunity to emphasize the importance of "Critical Thinking" - teaching children to keep an open mind and to think about (and not automatically believe) what they are reading, seeing or hearing. That would prepare them nicely to handle not only the Internet and unreliable search engine results but also other modern menaces such as the tabloid media, politicians' spin, dodgy cults, and snake-oil salesmen promoting the latest alternative therapy or health fad.

Chris K, Cheltenham, UK

These same universities eschew the teaching of objective truth and promote the false dogma of political correctness. Yet here in this article, we would be led to believe that this poor professor is the last besieged defender of truth for society. Professor, if you want to rectify falsehoods in the media, please start by correcting your "esteemed" colleagues on campus who spew out this political correct nonsense to students. When you return objective truth to the campus, then we'll let you set your sights on fixing the internet for us.

frank, singapore, singapore

If Google is not used in the spirit in which it is intended, as a guide rather than a creditable reference source, then both professors and students are to blame - the former for not emphasizing the overall unreliabilty of the material presented and the later for taking for granted that what they see is the whole truth. Though this only covers one side of the coin. All users of Google are guilty to varying degrees of using search engines as repositories for their own factual memories, finding it much easier to seach for forgotten facts over a 3G network connection than relying their own memories. It's great to have the option, but if remembering facts for yourself is wholemeal, searching for forgetten tidbits over the nearest connection has the potential to turn otherwise healthy minds into white bread mush.

Julian, Twickenham, UK

And Google has its own leftist bias. Yes, it is easier to take the first thing presented on the page but more interesting to scroll down to see what else you've gotten from your search. Try a variety of search engines as well as a variety of words when doing the search. And who is to say that material in printed form is any more reliable as to accuracy and truthfulness??

Chaya, Bat Yam, Israel, Israel

LOL LOL I just went to Google Scholar and typed in 'Israel' and got this!

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=o3-97W8vCdIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=Israel&ots=TkLLepEA7n&sig=-0wqnLuevC7_YpCYIby5OulUhsM

Chaya, Bat Yam, Israel, Israel

Is it really appropriate for a professor of media studies to crticise Google and complain that it is responsible for dulling "students’ sense of curiosity"? What has her subject, let alone her University, ever done for intellectual debate?

I thoroughly agree with the sentiment that Wikipedia is a poor source of authoritative information, but to taint Google with the same brush is foolish: Wikipedia aims to answer all questions, often badly - Google simply acts as a gateway to the information available on the internet. I can say with much certainty, a student of even a half decent standard will easily be able to discern between what is authoritative information and what is not; with opinions almost as sensational as her surname Tara really shoud have used Google recently to find out that it would probably allow her students to access most of the 200 printed extracts she provided to her students.

Hassan Azam, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England

First step toward addressing this situation -- make students list their sources of information on any work they submit.

Edward, London,

The German magazine 'Stern' employed an independent research institute to compare 50 randomly selected subjects in the areas of politics, economics, sport, science, culture, entertainment, geography, medicine, history and religion in the German Wikipedia and the online version of Brockhaus Encyclopedia, the German equivalent of the Britannica.
Scores (using the German school system 1=excellent, 2=good, 3=sufficient, 4=deficient/fail, 5=bad/fail) were assigned on the four criteria correctness, completeness, up-to-dateness and comprehensibility. Wikipedia obtained across all areas an average score of 1.7 (good to excellent). The entries for the same key words in the Brockhaus online system (to which you have to subscribe) only obtained an average of 2.7 (average to good).
Of course, these results are only applicable to the German language version of Wikipedia. A similar type of survey would have to be conducted for the other language areas.

Diane Faraday, Cologne, Germany

Google have a special search engine called Google Scholar for searching academic papers -- and it’s much easier to use than the traditional bibliographic databases. Typically, the papers which Scholar lists are not available on public websites but they can usually be accessed online if the university has the appropriate subscription.

It is really up to the university to teach the students how to evaluate information. The last thing we want would be a search engine which made this judgement for us because it would be a form of Orwellian censorship .

The professor should use some imagination and task her students with finding 20 factual errors in Wikipedia or looking for instances where Google has suppressed negative comments about themselves.

Incidentally, a Google search for ‘white bread’ gave this article a ranking of 5 in their listing – just behind Delia Smith and Wikipedia.

Brian Probert, London,

How can a newspaper criticize someone for unreliable information, ridiculous.

megaL, Lodon, UK

I submit that what is really of concern here is the information revolution that has restored our freedom of speech - something we have not had for at least seventy years due to control of the establishment press. If anything the infinite ability to dessiminate information and ability to fact check anything is what frightens media "professors." They have lost control and KNOW it. Hence, the alarm bells and expressions of horror over the purported imbeciles' deficiencies in discerning truths for oneselves. Sorry, teach, we don't need to be "taught" what to believe, only to critically analyse and fact-check for veracity.

Stephanie, Cary, NC

Google is a search engine, a tool for finding information, and it is a useful one. Google itself is not the problem, and it is trying to become part of the answer with intiatives such as Google Scholar. The problem is the vast amount of information on the internet and the variable quality of that information, and the lack of skills to evaluate and use information effectively and ethically. School and university librarians are addressing these problems and there is now a large body of literature about Information Literacy. Making professionally run and staffed school libraries statutory would go a long way towards equipping the interet generation with these skills.

L Martin, Bury St Edmunds, UK

This is old hat. We were taught to be discriminating when I was in school way back 30 years ago. How many sources did I get from the school library for assignments... two? Three? Today everything, even original documentation, is on the web. So there's more info and it's easier, quicker and cheaper to find and compare points of view.

Sylvia Miller, Zurich,

This idiot professor's main point seems to be that people have put up opinions on Wiki, and her students are too dumb to realise that these are just opinions. But who is she to say that those 200 extracts that she hands out are correct. If she wants her students to think critically then forcing her own opinions and beliefs on them is not the way to do it.

andy, London,

I somewhat agree with the professor. In the early days of the internet I could find relavent information about an international company that was critical of their intentions and mind control training. Within a few weeks another search revealed hundreds, if not thousands, of web sites extolling their virtues. The original web site could not be found. Tara Brabazon is right there. But also, I know of those seeking doctoral degrees who could not get their thesis past the peer review committee because their research disproved the accepted theories. Therefore, so called "peer reviewed" treatises may also be slanted, if not outright lies.
Mike Long, Nebraska, USA

Mike Long, Wolbach, USA/Nebraska

They are provided with texts for their written work? Amazing!! What happened to the challenge of original research, analysis and application? It all sounds far too easy.

Sheelagh , Cheadle , UK

At my university all of our lecturers warn us about using sites such as 'Wikipedia' etc and the validity of their content, however the majority of the time I use Google to search for information.

I think that as long as you check the information you find by using academic texts/journals and so on, then Google is simply another tool that helps with our research and studies.

But i can see what Professor Brabazon is saying - if students are relying solely on google and the information it 'feeds', the line between what is credible and what is not, becomes very blurred.

Chris English, Essex, UK

So are you going to tell us, what is the difference between "anecdotal" and "unsubstantiated" material on the net? I would have thought not a lot!

John Ledbury, Kings Lynn, England

Ironic for a professor of meeja studies to complain about dumbing down... And Keen's 'billion different truths' referred to are a direct result of the post -modernist, 'There is no such thing as truth' philosophy proposed by the deconstructionists.In other words, they thought Truth was all over- it is now...

cowfreak, paris, france

If you are a long distance postgraduate without access to a University Library, nor a password into the restricted access journals, Google with Zotero and Google Scholar you have some semblance of academe.
What you miss is the company of fellow post grads - Google Talk is the remedy.

Jane Fleming, Whittlesey, Cambs UK

It is not sensible to put Google and Wikipedia in the same sentence: they are chalk and cheese.

The worry is that Goggle is starting to be seen as the ONLY source of information, rather than libraries, original documents and the like. It can make people lazy (and give them square eyes, tired backs and expanding waistlines!)

Gerry Watts, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia