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USAGE OF COMPUTER AND INTERNET IN CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH

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ZENITH International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research _______________ISSN 2231-5780
Vol.4 (4), APRIL (2014)
Online available at zenithresearch.org.in

USAGE OF COMPUTER AND INTERNET IN

CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH

DR. AVANI MANIAR*; MS. LEENA CHAUHAN**

*ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

** UGC-JUNIOR RESEARCH FELLOW,

DEPARTMENT OF EXTENSION AND COMMUNICATION,

FACULTY OF FAMILY AND COMMUNITY SCIENCES,
THE MAHARAJA SAYAJIRAO UNIVERSITY OF BARODA,
VADODARA. GUAJARAT, INDIA

ABSTRACT

Use of internet is very common among all of us. It can be said that computer and internet has
become an important part of life. It is directly or indirectly affecting our daily activities e.g. for
reading, socializing, locating addresses, getting updated, watching movies, shopping, chatting,
contacting friends etc. Therefore, researchers are also bringing their researches to virtual world.
Nowadays online research has become so popular. Almost all research institute and educational
institutes are into it. Internet has made data collection process fast and economic.

Online researches/ surveys are easy to administer and cost effective in terms of data collection and
their analysis. This new trend has been influenced by growth of interactive new media technology.
The technology for online survey research is new and evolving. It is a creative task which requires
familiarity with web authoring programs, HTML code, and scripting programs. Nowadays such
programs are easily available on internet and apart from this, there are various web portals which
allow researchers to create survey and administer it on web. This reduces researcher‟s time and effort.
Through this a researcher can cater large number of respondents from different geographical location
at a time. This paper will throw light on uses of internet in social science research and give an insight
to administer online survey.

KEYWORDS: Importance of Internet in research, online data collection, data analysis, use of
internet and computer in research.

1.1. INTRODUCTION

Use of internet is very common among all of us. It can be said that computer and internet has
become an important part of life. It is directly or indirectly affecting our daily activities e.g.
for reading, socializing, locating addresses, getting updated, watching movies, shopping,
chatting, contacting friends etc. Therefore, researchers are also bringing their researches to
virtual world by publishing their research work online. For carrying out a research on internet
is a recent phenomenon amongst Indian researchers and scholars. It has become a helping
hand for researcher in terms of collecting related reviews, developing questionnaire,

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collection of data, data analysis and report writing. Not only this, it also provides a platform
to researcher for publishing their research paper.

Figure 1 Usage of Internet in Research

Conceptualizatio
Questionnaire
n and Review of Data Collection
Designing
Literature

Data Analysis Report Writing Paper Publishing

This new trend has been influenced by growth of interactive new media technology. It is a
creative task which requires familiarity with web authoring programs, HTML code, and
scripting programs. There are various web portals which allow researchers to create survey
and administer it on web. This reduces researcher‟s time and effort. Through this a researcher
can cater large number of respondents from different geographical location at a time. Use of
computer is very common among all of us. This method of research has made data collection
process fast and economic. Through this way the respondents also get a liberty of filling
questionnaire according to their suitability of time.

Williams, S. G. (2012) stated in her article onThe Ethics of Internet Research that Research
conducted on the internet is a cost effective form of recruitment, data collection, and
analysis. Researchers can access individuals worldwide for studies in remote areas where
there is a lack of or inability to conduct research. With this opportunity come ethical
concerns such as determining a safe environment to take a survey, research in a virtual
environment, data security, confidentiality, and performing secondary analysis on archived
support group information.Author further added that researchers should be aware of laws
regarding minors and respect the core ethical principles of beneficence, respect for persons
and justice.

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Prathap,D.P, Premavathi, P., Ramasubramanian, M. (2011) stated in their article on The

Feasibility of Conducting Online Surveys that The phenomenal growth of the „interactive‟
new media over the last few years has led to researchers looking to internet for conducting
surveys. Such surveys, whichuse e-texts, needless resources, elicit faster responses and
enable contacting a vast population of all kinds of individuals and groups cutting across
geographical borders. They further added that in country like India, surveys through Internet
will become popular, as more and more people are becoming computer-savvy, the
rapidglobalization encouraging such a trend.Through online survey researches data can be
easily collected from worldwide.

This new trend has been influenced by growth of interactive new media technology. A
researcher should always be aware of laws and ethics related to internet. This will help
him/herto use internet in better way for research purposes and protect him to get into trouble
also. The Internet has the potential to change the way we conduct scholarly research. It
eliminates geographical barriers of researchers.

1.2. USE OF COMPUTER AND INTERNET IN DIFFERENT STAGES OF

RESEARCH
Computers and internet both are closely interrelated and they both are important in
any stage of research whether it is a review stage, data collection, data analysis stage
or report writing stage.
A. Conceptualization and Review of Literature
The researcher gets so many ideas by review of literature. It helps in finding the other
research projects in the same field and also allows one to explore other areas which
have not been researched. It broadens researcher‟s perspective and set his work in
context. Review of literature is required at different level of research. They are-

o At the beginning of research to find out the other similar researches and explore
new areas of research.
o During the research, in order to know the updates and recent researches carried
out in same field by others. It is also necessary for any researcher to understand
the methods and the field of his research by reviewing related materials.
o After the research it enables researcher in knowing about
 to see what impact his work has had.
 todevelop ideas for further researches etc.

The obvious place to read are the libraries, particularly when one is conducting research
in academic setting. Libraries may be wide ranging or specialized resources, general or
academic in function, for reference only or available for borrowing. The researcher can
use public libraries, university library. All these can be browsed on internet also.Internet
has a vast source of information. There are virtual libraries which are free and user
friendly also. From where anyone can download or upload any book or article. Some of
these are paid also, where one need to signup first and pay some amount to use it. These
libraries are helpful to every researcher as they can make use of it from anywhere, at any
time and as per their comfort. Following are some examples of it:

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Figure 2List of Virtual Libraries and Search Engines

Virtual Libraries
 The WWW Virtual Library (http://vlib.org/)

 Digital Library of India ( http://www.dli.ernet.in/ )

 Shodhganga ( http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/ )

 Questia Library
(http://www.questia.com/?gclid=CLrvrIqf9boCFeE34godw3gAFA )

 EdITLib (http://www.editlib.org/ )

 Infomine (http://lib-www.ucr.edu/) ( http://infomine.uce.edu/)

 Women Studies Digitla Library

(http://www.academicinfo.net/womenlibrary.html)

 Hansa Mehta E Library

(http://www.hmlibrary.ac.in/aboutus.asp#javascript)

 JGate.com (http://jgateplus.com/search/login/)

Search Engines
 Yahoo.com
 Google.com
 Bing.com
 Hotbot.com
 Mamma.com
 Answers.com
 Easy.com

From past few years the increase in the amount of online information has been enormous.
Many bibliographic sources are available in several formats- on CD-ROM and online via the
internet. Through internet it is possible to find out details of books, journal article and
conference proceedings, as well as for data such as statistics, maps, contacts in organizations,

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email addresses etc. Researcher can access online the full text of many of the primary sources
like journal articles. The accessibility of information on internet makes it very attractive
source for research. Though it is very time consuming because of its large amount of
information but have very relevant information in it. Therefore internet surfing for review of
literature needs to be systematic and carefully managed as it requires a check on the quality
of the information one is accessing.
B. Data Collection
The internet can be used as a method of collecting data via direct email, web surveys, or other
electronic instruments. Though it is a non-secured medium but it provide researcher a helping
hand breaking all geographical barriers and time limitations. There are various web portals
which allows researcher to design questionnaire or upload it and collect data. Like
Surveymonkey.com, Psychsurveys.com, iperception.com etc.

Figure 3 Different Online Survey Websites

• Most popular online survey tool. Allows to

Surveymonky.com design questionnaire and send to many.
• Provide graphical presentation of collected data

• Allows user to build forms without any coding

Formstack.com knowledge.
• Several layers of security

• Free online tool for social science researchers.

Psychsurveys.com
• Allows user to build forms and collect data

• Active Research Platform wich allows to design

iperception.com questionnaire and collect, integrate and
analyze data in multiple laguages.

• Allows to design a form and automatically

builds the database, backend and scripts needed
wufoo.com
to make collecting and understanding the data
easy, fast and fun.

• it is an editor and quizmaker tool which allows

Ispring
data collection and preparing its presentations

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Some of these are free and some are paid. A researcher can opt for any of these as per his/her
need. Use of SurveyMonkey.com, Psychsurveys.com and other online survey tools is
permitted for minimal risk studies that do not involve the collection of sensitive
data. Researcher who wants to use SurveyMonkey and other similar web portals for data
collection should upgrade to a professional account which offers SSL(Secure Sockets Layer)
encryption whereas Psychsurveys offers SSL encryption for all studies.

Apart from this, Microsoft Office Access 2007 also makes it easy to collect data from
people who are located anywhere on the globe. It works with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
to help researchers to generate and send an e-mail message that includes a data entry form.
When the recipients fill the forms and send them back to the researcher, the replies are
processed according to researcher‟s specifications.

Guidelines for Online Data Collection

 A consent document for the internet should be written like a cover letter and should
include all the elements of a regular signed consent, as appropriate. The signature line
should read, “By completing the survey, you are agreeing to participate in the research.”
Web based surveys should offer subjects the option to “Agree”/”Not Agree.” Online
consent may not be appropriate for studies involving highly sensitive information.
 For sensitive data transmission, the investigator should include a disclosure in the consent
process, such as: “This research involves the transmission of data over the internet. Every
reasonable effort has been taken to ensure the effective use of available technology
however, confidentiality during online communication cannot be guaranteed.”
 An alternative means for completing the survey should be offered where appropriate,
such as printing the survey and mailing it in.
 At the end of the survey, there should be one button to submit the data and another button
to discard the data. The purpose of these buttons is to ensure that a subject may withdraw
at any time and to help them understand that if they do withdraw, even after completing
the survey, their data can be discarded prior to transmission to the researcher.

C. Data Analysis
Once the data are coded, they are ready for analysis. They can be coded online with help of
the website which is used to collect data or if the data is collected manually it can be coded
on MS Excel or Access. After coding the researcher must decide on the inferential statistics
required and the programmes that he or she will use to analyse the data.
There are various programmes and software available for data analysis like MS Excel, MS
Access, SPSS, STATFIT etc. There are websites also which allows researchers to upload
data there and analyse data on web. Such websites automatically produce the summary of
uploaded data and provide graphical presentation too.

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Figure 4 Software and Websites for Data Analysis

Software
• MS Excel
• Ms Access
• SPSS
• Statfit
• SAS/STAT
• HyperQual
Websites
• http://www.statcrunch.com/
• http:/faculty.vassar.edu/lowry/into.html
• http://home.clara.net/sisa/index.htm

SPSS is a very widely used package, especially in social science researches carried out by
individual, universities, government or by any private organisations. SPSS (Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences) was developed for social scientists. Its statistical procedures
tend to have had less input from professional statisticians than other packages.

D. Report Writing
Report writing is the last step of research process. The researcher should start writing
for the research report from the starting of the research. It will save his/her time and help in
completing the report on time. Computer plays a very important role in documenting your
research. Here one can store data and use it whenever required. Once analysis of data is done,
then it is time for writing data interpretation and discussion. A researcher needs to explain the
whole process precisely. A researcher should-
 Make note on what he has read.
 Drafting of contents page
 Type out the references or bibliography.
 Draft the structure for a section or chapter.
The process of writing is become easier when one is using computer for report writing. This
will enable the researcher to access easily those sections he wish to change or update, to
move sections of text around, to make simple alteration throughout the text, to check
spellings and grammatical mistakes. This also helps in the saving the time and energy of the
researcher.
The computer is also helpful in making graphs, diagrams, tables while writing the report. A
researcher can make his report interesting and attractive by the use of smart arts. After
writing it the researcher can also publish his report on internet.

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MS Word is ideal for documenting research. It is userfriendly and allows researcher to make
his/her thesis or report presentable and organised. It is helpful in following manner.

Figure 5 Important functions of MS Word 2007 Useful for Report Writing

Layout
• Variety of page layouts, fonts and font sizes are available

Spell check
• It will check your spelling for you and suggest possible corrections.

Word count
• It will count the number of words you have typed, useful if you are working to a limit.

Thesaurus

• This will suggest alternative or synonymous terms, to stop you using the same words
all of the time.
Grammar check
• Help in checking grammatical error.

Find and Replace

• It can search through your text to find particular words or passages. And replace them
with new one.
Tabulation, Smart Arts, Diagram and Graphs
• Helps in creating beautiful tables and charts, smart arts graphs as per the requirement.

Table of Contents
• It can automatically produce ToC by a single click.

Apart from this there are various online text editors available which can be use easily. They
are:
Google Drive: Google Drive provides various interesting features to edit documents.
Edit Pad:This is an easy text editor which works without any formatting. Here one can type
and download the document.
Edit with Friends: This allows a team to work on same document from different
computers.It shows the changes made by the teammate without a page reload.

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Shutterborg: Shutterborg is an easy-to-use and free online document editor. It uses a clear
layout with one menu bar and an own mouse content menu.
CKEditor: The CKEditor is a free online editor with a lot of features.
Online Text Analyzing: This tool analyses text and displays information about the used
words, characters and the structure of text.
Word Counter: It counts the words, characters and sentences of document while typing.
Text Comparison:This tool helps in comparing two documents. This also compare number
of characters in each document.
Spell Check: The Spellchecker helps in displaying wrong words and gives suggestions for
replacing them.
E. Paper Publishing
After finishing with report writing an important step is to publish your research work.
Internet is very helpful in publishing research papers. It allows researcher to showcase his/her
research work to others. Now a days all of us uses internet to browse information from any
field. It provide innumerable viewers for your published work. There are various online
journals where one can submit his/her research article and get cited by others. They are-

Table 1Name and Web Address of Important Journal

Name of Journal Web Address

International Journal of Scientific and http://www.ijsrp.org/online-submission.html

Research Publications

IOSR Journal, International Organisation of http://iosrjournals.org/

Scientific Research

Indian Agriculture Research Journals http://epubs.icar.org.in/ejournal/

Indian Research Journals http://www.indianresearchjournals.com/

Indian Journal of Social Sciences http://www.indianjournals.com/ijor.aspx?target=

ijor:ijsw&type=home

Shodhganga http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/

Researcher not only can subscribe these journals but also can submit his/her research articles
here. Some of these are free whereas for some journals one needs to pay paper submission
fee.

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1.3. ADVANTAGES OF USING INTERNET AND COMPUTER FOR RESEARCH

PURPOSES:

Provide vast
Save Time and Faster, Simpler
source of
Energy and Economic
Information

Breaks
Correction of
Flexibility Geographical
Errors
Barriers

 It makes the process of research faster, simpler and cheaper. However, for data collection
the response rate in this is low as compare to other on ground survey. So efforts to
increase higher response rate may increase its cost.

 The time spent on data collection process is shortened as it can be collected in defined
and short period.
 Computer and internet helps in preparing good presentation and quality documentation of
research work.
 It provide vast source of information related to anything. Researchers can utilize these
information for conceptualisation, reconsideration and for better implementation.
 For helping respondents pop-up instructions can be provided with particular questions
where assistance is required.
 Questions with long lists of answer choices can be used to provide immediate coding.
 Online survey tools are flexible enough where respondents are allowed to save their
response and resume when they are back. They can fill it in two three or more chances
according to their convenience and then submit it.
 Collected data can be easily analyse with the use of various online and offline software.
 Through these it becomes easy for researcher to rectify errors and mistakes occurred in
report.
 They provide sufficient amount of storage where any data and document can be stored.
 Internet provides a platform for researcher to showcase his/her work through publishing it
on e-journals.

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1.4. LIMITATIONS OF USING INTERNET AND COMPUTER FOR RESEARCH

PURPOSES:
Though internet and computer are helping tools for researcher but there are some limitations
for using it.

Questionnaire
Sampling Frames Non Response
Designing

Restricts Thought
Chances of Plagiarism
Process

 Researcher should always mention the source of information which he is using in his
report or thesis. Otherwise he will caught in trouble through plagiarism.
 Internet restricts researchers‟ thought process. One is unable to think beyond it if
he/she is addicted to internet surfing. Therefore a researcher should always refer
books and journals from university library too and also utilize his/her own thoughts
and creativity for research work.
 Computer and Internet works on inbuilt programmes. They cannot think. This
increases chances of occurring errors in data analysis. Therefore a researcher should
always consult with statitian before using any formula for data analysis. This will help
in putting correct formula for desired data set and provide correct results.
 Apart from these limitations there are some limitations of online surveys
also. Vehovar, V., LozarManfreda, K. (2008) discussed important issues of online
surveys in their book on Overview: Online Surveys. They are:

 Sampling: The difference between probability samples (where the inclusion

probabilities for all units of the target population is known in advance) and non-
probability samples (which often require less time and effort but generally do not
support statistical inference) is crucial. Probability samples are highly affected by
problems of non-coverage (not all members of the general population have Internet
access) and frame problems (online survey invitations are most conveniently
distributed using e-mail, but there are no e-mail directories of the general population
that might be used as a sampling frame). Because coverage and frame problems can

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significantly impact data quality, they should be adequately reported when

disseminating the research results.
 Invitations to online surveys. Due to the lack of sampling frames many online survey
invitations are published in the form of an URL link on web sites or in other media,
which leads to sample selection bias that is out of research control and to non-
probability samples. Traditional solicitation modes, such as telephone or mail
invitations to web surveys, can help overcoming probability sampling issues in online
surveys. However, such approaches are faced with problems of dramatically higher
costs and questionable effectiveness.
 Non-response.Online survey response rates are generally low and also vary
extremely – from less than 1% in enterprise surveys with e-mail invitations to almost
100% in specific membership surveys. In addition to refusing participation,
terminating surveying during the process or not answering certain questions, several
other non-response patterns can be observed in online surveys, such as lurking
respondents and a combination of partial and item non-response.
 Questionnaire design. While modern web questionnaires offer a range of design
features (different question types, images, multimedia), the use of such elements
should be limited to the extent necessary for respondents to understand questions or to
stimulate the response. It should not affect their responses, because that would mean
lower validity and reliability of data. Appropriate questionnaire design can help
lowering the measurement error that can arise also due to the respondents or the
survey mode itself (respondent‟s motivation, computer literacy, abilities, privacy
concerns, etc.).
 Post-survey adjustments. Various robust procedures have been developed for
situations where sampling deviate from probability selection, or, when we face non-
coverage and non-response problems. The standard statistical inference procedures
(e.g. confidence interval calculations and hypothesis testing) still require a probability
sample. The actual survey practice, particularly in marketing research and in public
opinion polling, which massively neglects the principles of probability samples,
increasingly requires from the statistical profession to specify the conditions where
non-probability samples may work.
Thus, it can be understood that though it is an easy and convenient method but there are some
limitations. These can be controlled to some extent. A researcher should always keep in mind
these issues so that there will be lesser chances of getting wrong or irrelevant findings.

1.5. CONCLUSION
Nowadays usage of computer and internet for research has become so popular. Almost all
researchers use it for their research purposes. This has made data collection process fast and
economic. Through this way the respondents also get a liberty of filling questionnaire
according to their suitability of time.
Internet and computer are essential resource for carrying out any research. They are proved to
be effective at each stage of research. One can make use of it for various activities such as
review of literature, getting information for concerned topic, data collection, data analysis,
report writing, preparing presentations, storing data and publishing research papers.

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Though internet and computers have made research process easy but it requires researchers
complete attention as there are chances of false data collection and analysis. Therefore at
each step a researcher needs to crosscheck whatever is done by computer and internet. This
will reduce the chances of occurring false data analysis on which the results will depend.
Along with this he/she also should take care of research ethics and should maintain the
limitations of using internet. Exploiting cyber rules and regulations may leads to trouble.
Hence it can be said that the use of internet and computer in research makes its process
simple and fast. Frequent use of computer and internet will provide a better understanding of
it. A researcher should always follow the regulatory rules decided by the authorities for its
usage.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
InstitutionalReviewBoard. (2009). Guidance for Computer and Internet-Based Research
Involving Human Participants. Retrieved November 2013, from University of Connecticut:
http://irb.uconn.edu/internet_research.html
Khan, K. (2013). 18 Free (& Best) Online Text Editors For editing & analyzing texts.
Retrieved 2013, from Online Free Tools: http://www.onlinefreetools.com/2013/08/Free-
Online-Text-Editors.html
Prathap, D. P., Premavathi, R., &Ramasubraminian, M. (2011).The Feasibility of Conducting
Online Surveys.Indian Journal of Adult Education, 71 (4).
USC, U. (2011). OPRS Office for the Protection of Research Subjects. Retrieved Nov 2013,
from USC web services: http://oprs.usc.edu/education/internet/
Vehovar, V., &LozarManfreda, K. (2008).Overview: Online Surveys In Fielding, The SAGE
Handbook of Online Research Methods. London: SAGE Publication.
Williams, S. G. (June 2012). The Ethics of Internet Research. Online Journal of Nursing
Informatics (OJNI), 16 (2), Available at http://ojni.org/issues/?p=1708

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