The World Wide Web is the latest branch growing from the learning and technology tree. It is providing teachers and students with educational opportunities that have the potential to change the nature of teaching and learning significantly.

In terms of education, the Internet has the ability to help bridge the "knowledge gap" between students at-risk and those that have ample access to various educational resources. People who are poorer in knowledge become even more so under knowledge gap theory because they are denied access to information.

This "bridging the gap" is the goal of one aspect of Edinboro University's Freshman Outreach Program--the Academic Survival Tips. The goal of the Academic Survival Tips web page is to actively engage all students--in the U.S. and abroad, in high school and college--in building of knowledge, while simultaneously teaching them the basic skills of navigating on the Internet.

The United States government and U.S. colleges and universities have historically been on the forefront of virtually every emerging phenomenon in our country, whether scientific, technical, social, behavioral or political. This generalization holds true for one of the more important communication and technological occurrences that continue to materialize even as we speak. The phenomenon is the Internet--and its relationship to higher education remains strong. Colleges and universities across American have embraced the Internet, using the network for the exchange of information and ideas, for research and for 2

Ycreating innovative ways to help students learn.

This paper will focus on one of the new applications of the Internet (more specifically, the World Wide Web) in higher education--its potential use for providing academic support services. Specifically, we focus on a program initiated at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 1992, called Academic Survival Tips (http://www.edinboro.edu/cwis/acaff/

suppserv/tips/fop-home.html), that was expanded to the World Wide Web November, 1996, with the goal of helping to bridge the gap between at-risk students and students already proficient in both computer navigational skills and basic study and social skills.

The Academic Survival Tips are one aspect of the Freshman Outreach Program at Edinboro University. These brief campus radio public service announcements are recorded by university faculty, administrators, staff, alumni and students and are designed to give the general student population advice on how to become more successful students. Currently, the Academic Survival Tips air on the campus radio station and are made available in two books the university publishes called the Freshman Year Informer and the Academic Survival Tips Handbook. More than 120 tips in 30 different categories (from stress

management to improving note-taking skills) are now available to Edinboro Students. Because the university has the ability to post the Academic Survival Tips on the World Wide Web, this project that initially intended to provided information and support only to Edinboro students can now reach a much larger audience of students in need.

The goal of the Academic Survival Tips web page is to actively engage all students--in the U.S. and abroad, in high school and college--in the building of knowledge, while simultaneously teaching them the basic skills of navigating on the Internet. This active learning process gives students who need additional information and academic support the opportunity to learn at their own pace. This web project is also intended to try to help lessen the "knowledge gap" between different levels of student understanding by simultaneously providing access to technology and using that technology to assist students in improving their learning skills.

This paper is divided into three basic sections. The first section deals with the Internet and the World Wide Web, focusing on a brief history of the medium and its growing relationship within the teaching-centered educational community (as the history section will show, its relationship to the research arm of education has existed for decades). The second section uses both knowledge gap theory, from the field of communications, and student development theory, from the field of education, to help explain how providing academic support through the web is a useful approach. The final section outlines our specific project, Academic Survival Tips on the World Wide Web.

Internet History

The Internet, like many things, was not initially designed for what it became, namely an all-purpose, often for-profit communications network. Rather, the Internet originated in the 1970s as a government tool for connecting incompatible computes at universities across the country that were working on military research (Coy, 1996). The initiative that created the Internet began under President Dwight Eisenhower--it was one of many projects that the Defense Department began working on after the 1957 Russian launch of Sputnik that led to a U.S. government feeling that the Soviet Union was beating it in the area of science. The network was originally an effort by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) at the Pentagon that was aimed at finding a way for computer users in one place to communicate with computers in other places (Bernstein, 1996).

In the next three decades, both the military and the educational communities refined and expanded their computer networks, and in the early 1990s software was introduced that helped create electronic bulletin boards that allowed people with shared interests to communicate with one another via the Internet. Soon after, in February 1993, a group of students at the University of Illinois published Mosaic, the first "browser" software that enabled users to scan various forums and download information from those sources to their computers (Stone, 1996).

The World Wide Web also came into being in the early 1990s. According to its account of the history of the World Wide Web, neXT Software Inc. writes that "the WWW project was originally developed to provide a distributed hypermedia system which could easily access--from any desktop computer--information spread across the world. The web includes standard formats for text, graphics, sound and video which can be indexed easily and searched by all networked machines" (WebObjects, 1996). CERN--the European Laboratory for Particle Physics--built the first web server and client machines in November, 1990. Today, more than 10,000 web sites exist and are accessible from more than 100 countries on all seven continents (Stone, 1996).

Learning and the World Wide Web

More than two decades ago, the computer revolutionized education. These days, it's not uncommon to find a plethora of computers in elementary schools across the country. As computer technology continues to expand, so does the way that education can utilize it to help students learn. The World Wide Web is the latest branch growing from the learning and technology tree.

As Odvard Egil Dyrli (1995, p. 47) writes in a recent Technology and Learning article:

The vast riches of the World Wide Web provide teachers and students with unparalleled educational opportunities, and free them from the limitations of using only the instructional materials available in the school. If you need an article, an image, or even an experience, it's yours electronically in record time. Hyperlinked information is also a powerful force for individualizing learning. Learners decide which links to follow and when, and can even follow several thoughts simultaneously. The World Wide Web has the potential to change the nature of teaching and learning significantly. It's time to get out on the Web and blaze new education trails to tomorrow.

As Dyrli notes, one of the strengths of the web is that it can help foster individualized learning. Kozma and Johnston (1991, p. 12) acknowledge this, observing that "the computer's processing capability can be used to create procedural systems in which information provided by the user determines what happens next."

Such an individualized approach can change the role of the instructor in the learning process. At a lecture at Northwestern University a few years ago (cited in Menges, 1994), Branson (1991) argued that this shift away from the professor as the center of the classroom is part of a new paradigm for education. In this paradigm, the new center is occupied by a collective, "accumulated knowledge" to which the students (as well as the professor) have direct access. Students learn through interaction with peers, with professors and through the use of new technology.

An Example--Learning English in Mexico

Using the Internet to interact with peers in English-speaking countries has helped Mexican high school students learn the English language better. In 1995, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) installed fiber optic Internet connections in all 14 of Mexico City's high schools and designed a model for teaching foreign languages "based on international culture and scientific exchanges via computer networks" (Meagher, 1995, p. 89). The university's research on these schools showed that the interaction between the Mexican students and students living in the countries where the language is spoken improved the Mexican students' work. They made significantly more progress than students in a control group who studied English traditionally, with a textbook.

Meagher concludes that "the technology unities students with their own communities as well as with peers in other nations, and gives them access to international libraries, databases, and museums. The opportunities are virtually unlimited" (p. 89).

As Kozma and Johnston (1991) note, "with technology, students are moving away from the passive reception for information to active engagement in the construction of knowledge." They add that computers "can facilitate the achievement of valued learning goals in higher education, but their role is not a simple one. It is not enough to buy the right computer and software, set the student down in front of it, and have the computer work its magic. The benefits of computing derive from a complex interaction between computer software, student abilities, curricular goals and instructional environment. With more experience we will come to better understand each of these variables and their interrelationships and we will be able to design better computer software, teaching techniques and instructional environments."

Knowledge Gap Theory

The Internet and the World Wide Web have provided teachers and students with educational opportunities that have the potential to change the nature of teaching and learning significantly. In terms of education, this new technology also has the ability to help bridge or widen the "knowledge gap" between students considered at-risk and those that have ample access to various educational resources, depending on how the technology is both used and made available.

Tichenor, Donohue and Olien (1970) formally introduced the knowledge gap hypothesis in the field of communications, writing that "As the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments, so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tends to increase rather than decrease" (p. 159-160).

Tichenor e. al. further stated that their hypothesis does not hold that lower status population segments remain completely uninformed, but rather that the growth in knowledge is greater among those in the higher status segments of the population.

Much of Tichenor, Donohue and Olien's subsequent work has focuses on the better educated segments of the population versus the lower educated segments in relationship to the knowledge gap hypothesis. They have proposed that education greatly influences the rate of knowledge gain because it is linked with better retention, comprehension and communication skills. Gaziano (1983) supports this notion in her research, observing that a consistent relationship between education levels and general knowledge of a variety of topics does exist. She adds that other contributing factors are most likely involved in the knowledge gap process--those factors could include exposure to the mass media and an individual's motivation to acquire information.

Much of knowledge gap research has been designed to find ways to help narrow the theorized disparity. Gaziano (1983) noted that "Perhaps the mass media have greater influence on reduction of knowledge gaps than previously believed. In situations in which evidence for positive relationships between education and knowledge is substantial, some scholars may wish to consider how such social disparities should be addressed with regard to decisions about research topics, allocation of resources and formulation of social policy" (p. 476). One example of this potential reduction is television--some knowledge gap studies have suggested that because of its widespread use among lower socioeconomic groups, television has actually helped to narrow the knowledge gap by making information more accessible (McQuail, 1994).

The knowledge gap theory is relevant to our project for several reasons. First, as Gaziano notes, it is possible that the mass media could have some "greater influence" on reducing the knowledge gap. Contemporary notions of mass communication or media include the Internet and the World Wide Web, so it is perhaps plausible that this technology could have a positive effect in helping to bridge the gap.

Of course, the opposite of what Gaziano suggests is also possible. That is, access to the Internet is clearly more readily available to those in higher socioeconomic status populations and has the potential to contribute to an increase in the knowledge gap. McQuail (1994) supports this notion: "The differential diffusion of new computer-based information technology also works towards increasing the division between the information-rich and the information-poor. Knowledge gap theory would indicate a widening of the gaps as a result, since people who are already information-rich, with higher information skills and more resources, would move even further ahead of informationally poorer strata" (p. 358).

Which ever outcome proves true, it is directly relevant and applicable to the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web within the context of higher education. This will be discussed in more detail in the next section that deals with student development theory.

But before moving to a discussion of student development theory, it's important to include a second rational for including knowledge gap in our thinking about the relationship between education and technology. Griffin (1990) suggests that mass communication researchers who study knowledge gap theory should pay attention to individual differences in information processing and storage abilities and learning styles. It seems reasonable to argue that individual members within a socioeconomic group who have the motivation to seek out information and who have the ability to learn that information once exposed) can successfully narrow the gap between themselves and the larger group classified by the theory as "information-rich." This is a notable distinction worth consideration.

Clearly, as Tichenor et. al. and Gaziano have shown, a relationship between education level and knowledge gap exists within society as a whole. But what about within higher education itself? Is it possible that some students (thinking in individual terms, as Griffin suggested) begin their college and university experience without important information that would help them succeed in school? Are some students so ill-prepared that they cannot utilize valuable resources even if they are provided with the access to those resources? Do cultural biases exist within the university that hinder the abilities of some students and enhance the abilities of others? We believe these specific questions are connected to the larger picture that the knowledge tap theory paints.

To answer these questions that relate specifically to the university climate and the potential for an applied knowledge gap in higher education, issues raised by student development theory need to be addressed.

Student Development Theory

Reynolds (1995) applied student development theory to the challenges that some African-American students face as they start college when she examined whether or not the utilization of intrusive counseling techniques (Glennen, 1976) would improve "institutional fit" for African-American freshmen attending a predominantly-white public university. Her hypothesis--that higher retention rates could be achieved through creating a greater degree of institutional fit--was proven correct and showed that steps taken to help these students eliminate academic deficiencies lessened the knowledge gap (to use Tichenor et.al.'s language) between them and students who were thoroughly prepared for the university experience.

Tinto (1987) specifically notes that academic and/or intellectual incongruence and social incongruence are the two primary factors that contribute to a possible mismatch or "lack of fit" between the needs, interests and preferences of individual students and those of the university (or institution).

Allen (1982) provides an example of this, writing that African-American students are usually academically and psychologically unprepared for the competitiveness they often encounter in predominantly white university. Of course, this can be said of many freshmen who experience unexpected encounters with peers who have dissimilar beliefs, background and attitudes (Astin, 1993). But for African-American freshmen, the social incongruence of having few African-American classmates and dealing with racial discrimination on a regular basis can have a more dramatic effect on the individual's ability to tolerate the resulting sense of being in an unfamiliar environment (Tinto, 1987).

Student development theory comes into play with the specific example of African-American students because minority student development in predominantly white colleges and universities follows a basic pattern of student development except for the idiosyncrasies associated with "race and cultures" (Stikes, 1984, p. 87). Carter (1990) investigated racial differences in cultural values in a sample of 799 traditional age African-American and white American college students. Results showed that the African-American students experience the environments in predominantly white colleges and universities as "hostile and unfamiliar whereas, white Americans may be experiencing developmental adjustments during their college years" (p. 78). Carter added that understanding 'students' worldview or cultural values" would perhaps reduce the anxiety and frustration that affects interpersonal and intergroup relationships.

Wright (1987) cautiously criticizes mainstream student development theories for a similar reason--that they do not consider the "cultural aspects for growth and development" (p. 12). Although most critics believe that minority students are in many ways similar to majority students in their development, existing developmental theories make assumptions about the "commonality of environment, culture and backgrounds of students that simply are not valid" (Upcraft, 1989, p. 48). In knowledge gap terms, these cultural biases would hinder the learning process to a greater degree for at-risk students.

Recognizing these weaknesses in mainstream student development theories, some scholars have started working toward obtaining a culturally pluralistic education community. Suen (1983) recommends that peer counseling and group activities be implemented to specifically help African-American students deal with the reduction of feelings of social estrangement they feel on university campuses. Pounds (1987), however, says that for support services to be effective, programs must have clearly defined goals and objectives with measurable outcomes that are frequently evaluated.

According to a study by the Retention Management System (1983), all students classified as at-risk, whether African-American, white or otherwise, are less receptive to campus-related support services designed to help them fit in and achieve academic success. It's only as a last resort that counseling has been utilized by at-risk students, even though academic support services can positively affect their retention (Turner, 1980). Noel (1991) believes that to be effective in designing academic and student support services to counter themes of attrition, it is important that we reach out to those students who need the program and services and not wait for them to come to us. Tinto (1985) shares Noel's concerns and stresses the importance of providing more frequent and rewarding contacts with at-risk students to increase the chance they will persist in their academic goals and develop a higher level of individual growth (and would reduce the knowledge gap in a higher education context).

Academic Survival Tips on the World Wide Web

We agree with Tinto and Noel and would suggest that one way to provide more frequent and rewarding contacts with students is through the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web. As we've outlined, critics of mainstream student development theory have noted weaknesses such as institutional cultural bias and have suggested that for academic support services to be more successful academic counselors need to find better ways to reach the students with the greatest need; they need to provide more contacts with these students; and, they need to create objectives that are both clear and measurable.

The basic suggestions of student development scholars fit nicely within the framework of knowledge gap theory. If you define the knowledge gap's lower socioeconomic population in student development terms you come up with the phrase "at-risk students." These students do not have all of the pre-requisite skills required to succeed in a university setting and the fact they are hard to reach can widen the gap between this group and the student population at large. The goal of this project is to examine how information technology might narrow this specific gap within the university.

How does the Internet help bridge some of the aspects of the knowledge gap in relationship to higher education? Suen (1983) suggested that peer counseling and group activities could be implemented to specifically help African-American students deal with the reduction of feelings of social estrangement they feel on university campuses. One way to help achieve this is through the use of electronic mail. By utilizing e-mail students not only become more comfortable with the new technology but may also feel more comfortable exchanging ideas with their peers.

Electronic newsgroups is one popular forum for debates and discussions worldwide. It may be useful to apply the general newsgroups ideas to a peer group setting to help enhance interactions, both on campus and with similar cultural groups on other campuses. An added benefit of utilizing e-mail is that it gives students out-of-class avenues for learning how to write more coherently and express thoughts more clearly. The newsgroups idea is an effort that could easily be coordinated by an academic support services office and is one example of how technology could be used to help minimize social estrangement. It fits with Gaziano's notion that mass communication (via mass media) could have a positive influence on the reduction of knowledge gaps. In this scenario, the widening of the gap is fostered by cultural bias and the inability to provide ways for students with similar social needs to support each other. Our suggestion is that the use of technology is one way to help minimize this.

Of course, technology is not a cure-all. In fact, in the area of culture and cultural biases it's naive to think that any one idea or approach can solve such a complex problem. Technology is simply one way to look at some of the questions that these theories raise. The technology that is applied in the Academic Survival Tips project is the World Wide Web.

The objective of the Academic Survival Tips program on the World Wide Web is to help the Edinboro University Academic Support Services Office become more successful at reaching at-risk students and fostering individualized learning. The measure of the program's success will come after examining the amount of use of the web site and the degree to which it will help at-risk students stay in school, develop active learning skills and develop computer navigational skills.

As mentioned at the beginning of this paper, the Academic Survival Tips program started in 1992 at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and has recently expanded to the World Wide Web to try to bridge the gap between at-risk students and students already proficient in both computer navigational skills and basic study and social skills. The Academic Survival Tips are one aspect of the Freshman Outreach Program. The tips originated as brief campus radio public service announcements recorded by university faculty, administrators, staff, alumni and students and are designed to give the general student population advice on how to become more successful students. Because the university now has the ability to post the Academic Survival Tips on the World Wide Web, this project that initially intended to provide information and support only to Edinboro students can now reach a much larger audience of students in need worldwide.

The web aspect of the Academic Survival Tips program begins with the dissemination of basic information about how to use the World Wide Web and where students can access the web using university computer facilities. Academic counselors who work with the Freshman Outreach Program go through this basic information step-by-step at a computer terminal and show the students how the Academic Survival Tips web site (http://www.edinboro.edu/cwis/acaff/suppserv/tips/fop-home.html) works.

The Academic Survival Tips web site is structured using a category system so that students can select the topic areas that are of interest to them. For example (an illustration of the information used in this example follow at the end of the paper), if a student who is having trouble with reading assignments is seeking information that may help him improve the way that he reads, he would start at the Academic Survival Tips main menu page and scan through the 30 available topics. The student would notice the category "Reading and Highlighting Written Text." At this point, all the student needs to do is point the mouse on that phrase and click. The student will then be "linked" to the menu of available survival tips that deal with this topic. The student now sees that, to date, the program offers seven survival tips that deal with this topic.

If the student isn't certain what his specific reading problem is, he might look at all seven tips to help him figure out both his problem and a possible solution. If the student understands his reading problem--let's say it's that he often doesn't understand the words and the jargon that a textbook uses--then the student can read the subject titles of the individual tips and click on the relevant one. In this case, our student would click on "Tip 3 (Understanding Jargon in Text)."

At any point in this process the student can go back to the topic's main menu page or he can return to the Academic Survival Tips main menu page. The student also has the option of searching for information on any of the Edinboro University web pages because with the click of a button he will travel to Edinboro University's home page. From Edinboro's home page, the student has several options--he can visit a variety of university departments or make a stop at the university library.

The Academic Survival Tips web site serves many purposes, all of which help narrow the knowledge gap that exists for at-risk students and support the changing notions of student development theory in education. First, the web site exercise forces these students to become computer literate. Once students acquire these basic computer skills, the theoretical issue of access to technology is eliminated. Computer literacy skills also help increase a student's standing in the higher education student hierarchy. Students who are not only word-processing literate but also proficient in using computers to navigate the World Wide Web and find useful resources stand a better chance of academic success and employment following graduation.

Second, the web site provides an environment for individualized, active learning. As Kozma and Johnston (1991, p. 17) pointed out, "with technology, students are moving away from the passive reception of information to active engagement in the construction of knowledge." The benefit of this is that students start to learn more about the ways that they individually process information and subsequently have a greater chance of retaining information in both short- and long-term memory.

Third, the constant availability of the web site helps increase the chances that at-risk students will seek help more often. Noel (1991) suggested that to be effective in designing academic and student support services to counter themes of attrition, it is important that we reach out to those students who need the program and services and not wait for them to come to us. Although our web project requires an initial encounter with students to make them aware of its presence and to teach them how to use it, the web site provides an alternative way to reach out to students that is available to them, in theory, at all times (in reality, availability also requires access to a computer, so 24-hour access will not be applicable to every student). Still, this avenue makes seeking help more private (for students who are uncomfortable asking for help) and generally allows for greater access to this information.

Finally, the Academic Survival Tips web site provides a resource that extends beyond at-risk students at Edinboro University to serve as a resource for at-risk students worldwide. Again, it is not realistic to assume that every student has access to the web and understands how to use it. This is especially true for at-risk students if we follow the basic premise of the knowledge gap theory. While this is an area that still needs improved, it is still helpful to have the resources available on the web so that when students gain access they have a specific place to go for information.

As mentioned throughout this paper, the ultimate goal of the Academic Survival Tips web project is to try to help lessen the knowledge gap between different levels of student understanding by simultaneously providing access to technology and using that technology to assist students in improving their learning skills. By providing clear and measurable objectives, the success of the project can be assessed during the academic year. As the project expands and grows, the project administrator will learn which aspects proved valuable in reducing the knowledge gap and which ones need to be revised or reconsidered.

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