As Hiroshi Komiyama, President of University of Tokyo, pointed out in his speech at the meeting of OECD Education Ministers on the future of higher education, technology has taken great leaps forward in the twentieth century and human knowledge, consequently, increased explosively. Many educators in higher education now consider the most significant challenge they are facing in twenty-first century is to structure the explosive output of knowledge of the twentieth century, and to create a new system for education.

This explosion of knowledge has been attributed to the use of the Internet has risen. People now can easily share plenty of information, knowledge, ideas, and academic works online through their own websites, public news forums, Facebook, MySpace, personal blogs, or other online media. As a result, these considerable quantities of knowledge sharing online have definitely changed people’s reading habits since there is usually no enough time for people to “read and digest” this large amount of information. People now are more used to “scan and browse” whatever they see on the Web page. Nicholas Carr, the New England based writer, explained that the Internet was eroding people’s ability to intellectually concentrate and contemplate. The ability is the key mental requisites that enable us to effectively consume and digest books or other long or complex textual information.

In addition, the explosion of knowledge in the Internet era might cause another problem. Since there is so much information on the Web for us to “know”, how would we be able to distinguish which one is useful or worth to know? Or do we have the ability to tell whether information is really meaningful to us? This is now a common concern for educators in higher education, as many students now prefer searching information or resources online rather than go to library. The quality of the knowledge or information online could vary a lot. Therefore, as for educators, it is important to help students to evaluate the online resources they are/ will be using. Generally, there are five criteria for researchers to evaluate the quality of the information: scope of coverage, authority, objectivity, accuracy, and timeliness. There is also a checklist provided to help researchers to evaluate their found information.  

The quality of the plenty of knowledge/ information sharing online could, of course, be a big concern while people are using it. However, there are also some positive sides of the explosion of knowledge. For instance, the digital technology, especially the Internet, make people have more opportunities to share their thoughts and their intelligence on the fields that they are good at or they are interested in. As a result, people now become more productive in sharing knowledge. And this sharing can be really timely. For example, people could easily type in keywords on Google search and find the information they want. If there is no direct and clear answer related to the question, they now can use Yahoo Answers to ask questions, either scholarly or day-to-day, and people who know information about it can simply post their response on the Web page. In addition, if people hold different opinions related to the issue, they can discuss easily using the message board. This could make people feel they are smart because they have the abilities to help others and solve their problems. As David Wolman stated in his article, “The Critics Need a Reboot. The Internet Hasn’t Led Us Into a New Dark Age,” the digital technology should offer people more opportunities to become smarter.

As we know, there are advantages and disadvantages of the explosion of knowledge in the Internet era. One very important thing for us to notice is that we need to be very careful whether we are “stealing” others’ works. Plagiarism of intellectual property is now a common issue and concern toward the explosion of knowledge. Since we have easy access to almost unlimited written materials on almost every subject, we could easily use the “property” of others without appropriate citation or permission. Then, this would be considered “stealing”, or plagiarism and the punishment could be severe. As for educators or teachers, it is now very important not only to ask students to represent their critical thinking toward a topic and to reflect the outcome of their learning, but also to instruct students how to avoid plagiarism. There are a few suggestions made by the Council of Writing Program Administrators to guide faculty how to help students avoid misuse of information and plagiarism. For example, faculty members could design the assignments encouraging students to investigate about a topic, not just to summarize others’ works. Furthermore, they could clearly state the goals of the assignments/ researches and communicate the writing policies and expectations with students. Educators could set up a session to talk about plagiarism and discuss about students’ common problems in documenting and analyzing the sources.

Of course, not only are educators and teachers responsible for protecting people’s intellectual property and avoiding plagiarism, but also students and administrators shall have responsibility. Students shall understand that the goal of the assignment is not only recycling information but also reflecting or presenting their own critical ideas/thoughts. Furthermore, whenever students have questions about using others’ works, they should consult their professors/ instructors to have further information. As for administrators, they need to create a “climate” that values academic honesty. For example, the policies for conducting researches should be clear and the penalties of plagiarism should be clearly stated. In addition, they should provide help for students and faculties who are uncertain about how to use the resources correctly.