Online materials and equipment

Online degree students need to use the worldwide web even more than conventional students. The Web presents a host of new challenges to online degree researchers accustomed to the more rational world of the library stacks. Web sites are not organized like books in a library, and it would be impossible to catalog all of its sites. No one, after all, owns the Internet, there is no central organization in place to enforce quality or editorial standards. Within the Web pages themselves, finished prose mixes freely with conversation, art with advertising, and careful research with reckless hearsay. Information is often published on the Web which no serious online degree instructor would touch. For this reason, Web sites are considered less authoritative research sources than printed articles and books, even when you're studying an online degree.

Yet, the flexibility of Web presentation makes new kinds of publications possible. The Web may be the only place where some specialized or time-sensitive information can be made public, for no other reason than that it would be too difficult, or unprofitable, to put it into print. So along with the rubbish that a Web search inevitably churns up, there are those sources which make Web research invaluable to online degree students, and in some cases essential.

For further information on web materials and how to search for the right ones, we recommend you to talk to your online degree instructor or to visit McGraw-Hill's "Introducing the Internet".

Online degree computer equipment :

   About the computer equipment you will need for an online degree program, it's usually the following (minimum):

   Pentium III Processor or better

   56k Modem

   20 GB hard drive

   128 MB RAM (256 recommended)

   Windows 98 or better

   Sound Card

   Plug-ins as needed

   MS Office 2000 or higher

   Internet Explorer 4 or Netscape 4

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