Finding Ideas on the World Wide Web
Computers in Communication
Boston University College of Communication
Copyright © 1996 by Professor Jim Lengel
What is the Internet?
Once upon a time, a scientist working on a government project at University
A needed to use a computer at Institute B in another city far
away. In those days, computers were expensive, and only Institute B had
the right kind for our scientist to use. Rather than travel to the Institute
to use the computer, the scientist convinced the University, and the government
agency sponsoring the research, to pay for a cable connecting the computer
at his University with the computer at the Institute. This worked well,
and saved money, and soon everyone in that business began connecting their
computers together. After a few years, most of the universities and institutes
and government agencies had established connections between their computers.
So there was a cable connecting the computers at Boston University to those
across the river at MIT. From MIT another cable ran to Dartmouth College
in New Hampshire. From there, a cables led to McGill University in Canada
and to SUNY at Albany. And so forth, sort of like a big web of connections.
If a scientist at Boston University wanted to send a computer file to a
colleague at Stanford University, way out in California, she would put an
address on it such as "scientist#5@stanford.edu." Then she's send
it along the cable to MIT. MIT's computer would see that it was addressed
to Stanford, and automatically send it along the cable to Dartmouth. Dartmouth
would route the file to Albany, and eventually it would arrive at the Stanford
computer, which would place it in her colleagues electronic mailbox.
In this system, there is no central post office, no hub through which all
messages pass, no brain controlling the whole enterprise. This decentralized
design was created on purpose, so that no enemy could destroy our electronic
communications capability simply by blowing up the nerve center.
As this web of connections grew, it came to be known as the internet. The
web grows bigger very day, and now extends all over the world, even to Russia
and China and India. You or I or a scientist or a child can address a message
to anyone else on the internet and it will find its way there, no matter
where they are.
The World Wide Web
As the internet grew, so did its uses. A few years ago, a group of scientists
in Switzerland wanted to develop a system so that they could share their
scientific papers with each other over a computer network. Their papers
were all in word-processing files already, and each of their universities
or institutes had a computer network that linked them together. So each
scientist set up one computer as a public information server by putting
all of his or her articles onto its hard drive, along with an annotated
directory of what each article was about. Then they connected the computer
to the internet. Now the other scientists could "log on" to that
server and browse through the articles, thus keeping up with the growth
of scientific knowledge. This idea expanded around the world, so that most
scientific groups - and many other kinds of folks - set up a public computer
"site" on the internet. A group at the University of Illinois
then created a new software program that would allow people to more easily
connect to and browse the information on these servers. As more and more
of the sites began using this same software to organize and search their
works, they became known as the World Wide Web. Today, the Web is the fastest-growing
part of the internet, and the easiest to use. To tap into the resources
of the World Wide Web, you need a full connection to the internet, as well
as a web browser software program on your computer. Mosaic and Netscape
are two popular (and inexpensive) web browsers. Some of the online information
services offer a web browser as part of their package of services.
Hypertext Searching
The World Wide Web uses a system of hypertext links between its documents
and sites. You click on a highlighted phrase in one document, and it takes
you on to another document at another site, and so forth, so everything
is linked to everything else. The authors of the documents embed the links
in their works. They use a common system called the Hypertext Markup Language,
or HTML, to author their documents. The web browser software on your computer
can interpret and automatically interlink any HTML document on any other
computer in the web. Hypertext cross-referencing, searching, and back-tracing
are new sills that students must learn to navigate successfully in today's
interlinked webs of electronic information.
Finding Your Way
Once connected to the Internet, you will find there is no "Town Center"
or "Main Menu" as there is with the family-oriented information
services such as America OnLine or Prodigy or eWorld. Instead, you are on
your own to connect to one of the thousands of Internet servers and see
what's there. To connect to these servers, you use a program called an "Internet
browser" such as Gopher or Mosaic or Netscape.
These programs put onto your screen a list of the information items that
exist on the server you are connected to. With Gopher, these items show
up as little file folders. You click on the folders to see what's inside.
With Netscape, the items show up as highlighted words in a paragraph
of standard text, or in a list, or as icons. You click on the word or icon
you want to see the information.
Many of the Gopher and World Wide Web servers that you find will have folders
or highlighted words that point to yet another Internet server. In this
way, you can "cruise" the Internet by connecting from server to
server looking for the information you want. But remember, there is no official
index to what's out there on the Internet, so for most students the online
service will get them more information, faster.
Knowing Where to Look
For the internet to be useful, it must first be set up and organized so
you can use it. The information must be arranged so that you can get what
he wants and make good use of it. Most of us will need some kind of index
or directory or starting points - such as the list at the end of this document
- in order to make sensible use of the internet.
The second key is the quality of the information available. This too demands
intelligence, in the gathering, summarizing, and organizing the sources
so they are meaningful and reliable. Not all of the information on all those
internet servers is useful, relevant or appropriate to a your work. In fact,
most of it isn't. You need pointers to the most useful and relevant sources
among the vast array of internet sites.
You may also need to be wary as you surf the internet. Some of the information
on some of those computers is not of the sort that you'd display for your
mother. No one censors the internet, so a crafty browser can find dirty
pictures and obscene stories, just as you can at the local library - if
you know where to look. By sticking to the sites listed below, you will
remain in safe territory.
Internet Sites for Finding Ideas
Here is a small but carefully-selected collection of computers on the internet
that contain information useful and relevant to finding new ideas. All of
these are open for public access without fees or subscriptions. Most are
maintained by respected and reputable institutions or organizations. Each
site is described briefly so you know what's there. And its internet address
is included.
To get to one of these sites, make your internet connection using Netscape
or other Web Browser, then select "Open Location" from the menubar.
Type in the URL (Universal Resource Location) exactly as it is listed below.
In a few seconds, your computer will connect to the "host" computer,
and the information will appear on your screen. From there, just point and
click to the items you want.
Here's how to interpret the URL we list for each site. Think of it as the
electronic address of the computer. Here's an example:
http://www.bu.edu/COM/netcom.html
1 2 3
1. http: hypertext transport protocol: this is the format of the signals
that this computer sends. Computers on the World Wide Web all use http.
2. www.bu.edu is the electronic identifier of the university that sponsors
this site. www stands for Word Wide Web; bu stands for Boston University;
and edu means that its an educational organization. Other designations you
might see are .com for a commercial organization or .gov for a government
site, or .uk for a site in England.
3. COM/netcom.html is the name of the file that you are reading. You are
reading the netcom.html which resides on the disk drive called COM.
All addresses on the World Wide Web folllow this form.
Directories and Indexes
Even though the internet has no official central directory, some people
have attempted to make a list of what's out there. Others have developed
tools that search out things on all those interconnected computers. By learning
to use these directories and indexes, you will learn how to find the needle
of an idea in the haystacks of data.
Yahoo Directory
Staff at Stanford University have organized many of the internet's servers
in a subject-area directory, sort of like the Yellow Pages. From Art to
Zoology, you click on the subject, getting more detailed at each step until
you find what you want. This may be the best place to start if you don't
know exactly what you are looking for but want to learn what's there.
http://www.yahoo.com
Open Text
These folks set their computer up to search out new information that is
posted on the internet, like a spider continuously crawling along the web.
Whenever it finds something new, it puts the words into a big index, that
you can search by typing in key words. Unlike other systems, Open Text indexes
the entire text of documents that it finds. So this comprehensive search
engine can be used to find phrases or key words.
http://www.opentext.com
Web Crawler
The computer scientists at Washington State have programmed their computers
to search the internet for information, and save it in a big index. By typing
in key words, you can send the web crawler out along the internet to find
what you are looking for. Type in a word or two, and the web crawler finds
you a site that refers to it.
http://webcrawler.cs.washington.edu/WebCrawler/WebQuery.html
Commercial Sites
Many companies, corporations, and services ply their wares on the internet.
This site has a search engine that can help you find the company or business
you want, with a keyword search engine.
http://www.directory.net/