Linkages between computers allowing data and other digitized information to be transmitted between computers. Networks may be local, regional, national, or international. Commercial vendors such as Prodigy, America Online, CompuServe, and World of Boston provide relatively user friendly instructions about how to use networks. Internet users no longer have to acquire greater expertise in Unix coding for creating web documents and FTP usage. For a summary of alternatives, see Document 6 at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen. For a sampling of professors who use network technology for courses, go to Document 4 at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen . Alternatives such as email, BBS services, and Groupware for networked PC instruction are compared at Texas A&M University by
Klemm and Snell (1994). They conclude that desktop conferencing is the best alternative and compare alternative vendor products for such purposes. For accounting educator Internet networks see also
ANet,
International Internet Association,
PIC-AECM, and
RAW. Prentice-Hall was the first publishing company, to our knowledge, to offer an interactive two-way network dialog between adopters of selected textbooks and the authors of those books, including a bulletin board of latest readings related to the text, abstracts of related literature, and classroom aids (see
ABKY for an illustration). CD-ROMs can be used on network servers using new hardware described in PC Computing, December 1994, p. 144. (See also
America Online,
DAB/DAR,
Delta Project,
CompuServe,
eWorld,
Interchange,
Prodigy,
LAN,
Video/audio networking,
Video server,
Internet, and
SLIP)
