Paper presented at SIS 2012 Conference held at NIT Silchar organised by Dr. K C Satpathy

1. Analysis of Internet Access and Use by
Students of Science and Technology
Departments of Assam University, Silchar
Presented By
Nilratan Bhattacharjee
Master in Library and Information Science
Assam University, Silchar
&
Mr. Nabin Chandra Dey
Assistant Professor
Department of Library & Information Science
Assam University, Silchar

2. INTRODUCTION
• Today we are passing through a phase in which
information is a key element. Information is the most
vital resource for any kind of activity.
• In the last three decades, advances in telecommunication
technologies have resulted in the development of
computer networks that allow access to voluminous
amount of information and services. Of the many
computer networks that have been developed, the most
prominent and widespread is the Internet. “Internet is
one of the most important and complex innovations of
mankind. It is a powerful means of
communication, dissemination and retrieval of
Information” (Sinha, 2011).

3. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The study specially focused on the following objectives.
 To know the characteristics of the population studied.
 To know the purposes of Internet use by the students community.
 To analyse the frequency and length of using Internet by the
respondents.
 To know the support of Internet in growing knowledge among the
respondents.
 To study the awareness about Internet and its tools among the
respondents.
 To know how far the e-consortium are being utilized by the
respondents.
 To ascertain the impact of Internet on the students community.
 To know the extent of difficulties or problems encounter by the
students community in accessing the Internet.
 To know the usefulness of the Internet in comparison to
conventional documents.

4. METHODOLOGY
• For the present study survey method has been
adopted. Survey, as the word, deals with mainly
collection of information, analysis and presentation
of data relating to the present time. For collecting
data questionnaire and observation method has been
taken as a research tool.
• A self-designed questionnaire prepared by the
researcher himself has been distributed to the
respondent of the study by simple random sampling
technique.

5. INTERNET CONNECTIVITY AT
ASSAM UNIVERSITY
Assam University came into existence through Central University
Act, 1989. Since 1994 the University is steadily becoming an
excellent centre of learning.
In March 1997, university opened a computer centre. This centre works
on behalf of the University providing Internet services through fiber
optic campus-wide network of BSNL with a bandwidth of 1Gbps OFC
link under the NMEICT project of Govt. of India. Another 10Mbps
OFC link is provided for e-journal access by University Grant
Commission under UGC-INFONET scheme.
For connections to the Internet each department have been provided with
a series of private IP addresses, DNS address is common for all the
departments. The computer centre maintains a proxy server called
“Cyber roam”, which takes care of incoming and outgoing network
traffic. Assam University has its own static IP addresses through
which it has hosted website on its own server and also provides e-mail
services under its domain name.

6. MAJOR FINDINGS
• The study traces the usage of Internet at home is 68.12% followed by 40.58% use
Internet at university library. From that it is concluded that maximum usage of
Internet by the respondents are from home. Due to this the users are deprived of
accessing the e-resources subscribed by the University Library. Since most of the
e-resources are IP based subscription, where access is only provided when IP
address is recognized, which is not possible from home.
• For accessing Internet from home a majority of the respondent i.e. 41.49% use
data card, 31.91% use mobile GPRS, 24.47% use broadband and only 2.13% use
Wi-Fi.
• More than 58% of students use the Internet services and resources „daily‟ while
less no. of students from various discipline use the Internet „at least once in a
week‟ and a very small no. of students use the Internet „once in a month‟.

7. MAJOR FINDINGS
• The analysis clearly indicates that on an average the majority of the respondents
had more than 3 years of experience in using the Internet.
• The study showed that on an average of 34.78% of respondent spend 15 to 20
hours per week on the Internet, 25.36% spend 5 to 10 hours, 14.49% spend less
than 5 hours, 13.77% spend more than 20 hours and lastly 11.59% spend 10 to 15
hours per week respectively.
• Of the Internet services, e-mail has been the most popular Internet
service, 98.55% of the respondents are aware about this service. Next in priority
came the Wikipedia with 68.12% response.
• Most of the students says that Internet is more informative, time saving, more
useful easy to use and more preferred than the conventional documents for
science and technology education as well as research practices.

8. MAJOR FINDINGS
• 64.49% of the respondents faced problems of slow Internet speed, which consume a
lot of their slot time in order to retrieve relevant information.
• Only 15.22% respondents have accessed the e-consortium like UGC
INFONET, INDEST from the university campus but a majority of the respondents
(84.78%) are not aware about the e-consortiums.
• A majority of the respondents (61.90%) out of all the respondents who have used the
e-consortium replied that e-consortium is highly useful which is followed by useful
(28.57%) and less useful (9.52%) respectively.
• 59.42% of respondents have training on computer operations/Internet whereas rest
doesn‟t have any training on computer operations/ Internet which shows that a
majority of the respondent are computer and Internet literate.
• 61.59% of the respondents are of the opinion that Internet can replace the library
services whereas only 38.41% respondents opine that Internet cannot replace the
library services.

9. SUGGESTIONS FROM THE RESPONDENTS
• Authority should regularly ensure the better performance of the
servers, computers and others hardware and software for easy and
fast access of the Internet.
• The number of computer or nodes with Internet connection need to
be increased in the library.
• Print out facilities should be provided with nominal charge for
students at the computer centre in the university.
• Librarians may take initiatives to prepare a list of subject
websites, library portals, library gateways that are useful for the
students.
• The department should conduct some training programme for the
students on Internet and its tools, safety, features etc.

10. SUGGESTIONS BY THE RESEARCHER
• The university authority should allocate and spend adequate fund for building proper
ICT infrastructure for the easy access of Internet.
• The students need to be aware of the advantages of the Internet. So it is suggested that
the university should conduct short term training course on Internet and make it
mandatory for all the students to attend the same.
• The South Assam or in particular Silchar being a Bengali speaking belt where the
students encounter problems in using English language. As most of the information
on Internet is available in English so a short term course in English will help the
students very much to find their relevant information from the Internet. The
university should take initiative in this direction and arrange some courses for
students on English learning.
• To prevent misuse of Internet facilities, proper monitoring of services should be
ensured and the restricted sites should be blocked.
• Information concerning the widespread and up-to-date websites with their addresses
in the field of science and technology should be displayed on the different places of
the university campus where users could easily notice.

11. CONCLUSION
• The Internet has emerged as the single most powerful vehicle for providing
access to unlimited information. The Internet is an inseparable part of today‟s
higher educational system.
• The Internet facility has enabled the students to enhance their academic
excellence by providing them the latest information and access to worldwide
information.
• The dependency on the Internet and its services is increasing day by day and the
users of University community too are depending more and more on the Internet
for their various educational purposes. Internet is rapidly becoming a key
component in higher education system.
• With other studies conducted in India and abroad about Internet, this study also
reveals that Internet plays a great role among the students‟ community. There are
some inherited problems associated with the proper use of Internet services. The
above suggestion will surely help the University authority to overcome the
constraints and provide better facilities to the Internet users.

12. THANK YOU