Banning Students from Google and Wikipedia - would it improve results?

Published January 14th, 2008

University students don’t use their brains enough resulting in mediocre or poor university research (and subsequently results). Apparently a big contribution to this is Google and Wikipedia.

Professor Tara Brabazon from Brighton University has said: “Too many students don’t use their own brains enough. We need to bring back the important values of research and analysis.”

Tara goes on to say “I ban my students from using Google, Wikipedia and other websites like that.”

This approach can be seen as naïve and has been compared to the challenges the music industry is facing today (banning the copying of music doesn’t stop people from doing it). Forcing people to adhere to only using ‘old’ methods is not the answer. Neither is using the internet as the only solution. Balance is key. If a student really wants to step up to do their best, they would naturally use a variety of methods to research a topic.

And anyways, if students are not producing the work, maybe they should be given guidance on how to do better. If all else fails, then surely the student should not pass the course/degree?

Some (great!) advantages of not banning the internet for students

• The net is great for finding information that some books will never tell you.
• Websites naturally link to related sources.
• Relevant (and focused) online communities can have existing discussions of interest, if you can’t find an answer you can always ask.
• There are usually focused websites and blogs, written by professionals and/or enthusiasts that can often give up to date information, thoughts or other perspectives.
• Searches can often lead you to materials that you never new existed. This could even mean books that are not available in your local library.
• Everyone is different and learns differently. Some people are happy learning from a book, others learn better through practice, and so forth. To ban something that could really make the learning experience more enjoyable and more effective could be seen as irresponsible.
• There are many web tools that can assist people to organise their thoughts.
• A student could start a blog on their ideas and get feedback from fellow students, Professors and the rest of the world.

These are ideas off the top of my head. I am sure there are plenty more.

If banning internet from students seems wrong. Then why do so many employers ban the internet from employees? Where should the line be drawn? (This is topic deserves another blog post!)

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 11:41 am and is filed under Driven. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Banning Students from Google and Wikipedia - would it improve results?”

1. Jackie Cameron Says:
   January 14th, 2008 at 10:47 pm

   I actually heard Prof Brabazon being interviewed on the radio on my way home today talking about this. I caught the tail end of it and in summary she said something like she gives her students the list of what she wants them to read as she is the expert and “God love them” ( her words) what do they know - or something to that effect. Hmmm.
   I think the point she was making was that academic learning should only come from academic sources.
   I see academic learning as integral -not apart from - overall personal learning.
   But I am happy to be wrong on that.
   Employers banning the internet at work I think are protecting their £/$ per hour more than anything else. I think there are better ways of encouraging responsible use though.

   Jackie

2. Michael Says:
   January 22nd, 2008 at 8:25 pm

   I was at Tara recent inaugural lecture at the University of Brighton and taped the lecture (6.5 MB WMA file). You can find the link at http://nomadx.org/content/view/1810/63/

   Regards
   Michael

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