♥♥Information Environment♥♥

What is an Information Environment?

There is now a critical mass of digital information resources that can be used to support researchers, learners, teachers and administrators in their work and study. The production of information is on the increase and ways to deal with this effectively are required. There is the need to ensure that quality information isn’t lost amongst the masses of digital data created everyday. If we can continue to improve the management, interrogation and serving of ‘quality’ information there is huge potential to enhance knowledge creation across learning and research communities. The aim of the Information Environment is to help provide convenient access to resources for research and learning through the use of resource discovery and resource management tools and the development of better services and practice. The Information Environment aims to allow discovery, access and use of resources for research and learning irrespective of their location.
An information environment incorporates all the factors affecting how an organization deals with information. It addresses all of a company’s values and beliefs about information, how people actually use information and what they do with it, the pitfalls that can interfere with information sharing and use, and the technology and information systems that are in place. A broad perspective is necessary to understand the impact of intangibles because addressing intangible assets and capabilities will require changes in and adaptations to regulation, governance, attitudes and behaviors—in addition to systems and technologies.

InTerNET

Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, and other technologies. The Internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail. In addition it supports popular services such as online chat, file transfer and file sharing, gaming, commerce, social networking, publishing, video on demand, and teleconferencing and telecommunications. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications allows person-to-person communication via voice and video.

Advantages

♥Communication

The foremost target of internet has always been the communication. And internet has excelled beyond the expectations .Still; innovations are going on to make it faster, more reliable. By the advent of computer’s Internet, our earth has reduced and has attained the form of a global village.
Now we can communicate in a fraction of second with a person who is sitting in the other part of the world. Today for better communication, we can avail the facilities of e-mail; we can chat for hours with our loved ones. There are plenty messenger services in offering. With help of such services, it has become very easy to establish a kind of global friendship where you can share your thoughts, can explore other cultures of different ethnicity.

♥Information
Information is probably the biggest advantage internet is offering. The Internet is a virtual treasure trove of information. Any kind of information on any topic under the sun is available on the Internet. The search engines like Google, yahoo is at your service on the Internet. You can almost find any type of data on almost any kind of subject that you are looking for. There is a huge amount of information available on the internet for just about every subject known to man, ranging from government law and services, trade fairs and conferences, market information, new ideas and technical support, the list is end less.
Students and children are among the top users who surf the Internet for research. Today, it is almost required that students should use the Internet for research for the purpose of gathering resources. Teachers have started giving assignments that require research on the Internet. Almost every coming day, researches on medical issues become much easier to locate. Numerous web sites available on the net are offering loads of information for people to research diseases and talk to doctors online at sites such as, America’s Doctor. During 1998 over 20 million people reported going online to retrieve health information.

♥Entertainment
Entertainment is another popular raison d'être why many people prefer to surf the Internet. In fact, media of internet has become quite successful in trapping multifaceted entertainment factor. Downloading games, visiting chat rooms or just surfing the Web are some of the uses people have discovered. There are numerous games that may be downloaded from the Internet for free. The industry of online gaming has tasted dramatic and phenomenal attention by game lovers. Chat rooms are popular because users can meet new and interesting people. In fact, the Internet has been successfully used by people to find life long partners. When people surf the Web, there are numerous things that can be found. Music, hobbies, news and more can be found and shared on the Internet.
♥Services
Many services are now provided on the internet such as online banking, job seeking, purchasing tickets for your favorite movies, guidance services on array of topics engulfing the every aspect of life, and hotel reservations. Often these services are not available off-line and can cost you more.
♥E-Commerce
E-commerce is the concept used for any type of commercial maneuvering, or business deals that involves the transfer of information across the globe via Internet. It has become a phenomenon associated with any kind of shopping, almost anything. You name it and E-commerce with its giant tentacles engulfing every single product and service will make you available at your door steps. It has got a real amazing and wide range of products from household needs, technology to entertainment.


My Role in in the Internet and The Different Challenges


The Internet has become ubiquitous to our way of life; it’s everywhere, and so common that we only notice it when it’s not available. But what is this mysterious Internet, and what are its pros and cons?
Some of the Internet’s strengths are also its greatest weaknesses. The biggest Internet benefit touted by proponents is that it’s available to anyone. Even if you don’t have Internet access yourself, you can go to most public libraries and log on there. Of course, since anyone can take a trip into cyberspace, people who have less-than-pure intentions are out on the World Wide Web along with the rest of us.

Yet information and communication are two of the Internet’s biggest advantages, and those advantages are distinctive. Information can be shared across computers, localities, time zones, and countries. Multi-national corporations can keep a project going ‘round the clock, moving it between workstations electronically via the Internet. Communication can happen via e-mail, Instant Messaging, or file sharing. Even telephone calls can now travel via the Internet, in a process known as VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol.
Besides work, the Internet also enhances play. Music, pictures and video can all be shared with a worldwide audience via the Internet. Want to preview your favorite band’s new song? You can probably hear a short piece of it for free. Games are available, some hosted on web sites or servers so you can try to save the universe while a "villain" playing the same game in Australia or Austria tries to destroy it. Dating and online gambling, including blackjack and poker, are two very popular diversions on the Internet.
However, the Internet has a dark side. It can be anonymous, or almost so, if you know how to cover your cyber address. This anonymity tempts people to do things they normally wouldn’t do in real life. Pornography sites have sprung up, some disguised as legitimate websites.
There are also threats to your computer and your personal information out in cyberspace. Computers run on programs, and those can be compromised by people with the technical knowledge and skill. They can figure out ways to infiltrate your computer. At the least, they can "spam" you with unwanted e-mail messages. At the worst, your computer may become infected with a "virus", a malignant program that takes over your computer. It may wipe out your hard drive and all the information on it, or send that information to the cyber-crook’s computer. Your personal information may be stolen, and that could lead to identity theft.
Using the Internet requires good protection in the form of a strong anti-virus program, as well as becoming educated about what "spoof" e-mail, spamming, and phishing are. But with proper precautions, your Internet experience can be very enriching, and you’ll soon discover that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Do you know about internet? I guess, this is one of stupid question that I ask. Everyone in this world is so close with computers, so it is unavoidable for them to know about internet. Internet is one of the best sources for gathering any information regarding with your doubts. At present, the usage of internet is high in numbers, which expects to be more in nearly future. The internet is having more advantages, one page is not sufficient for me to explain all about it.

So here, we are going to see some of the best advantages among it. First, we will see about Email, which is one of the valuable tools especially for business. You can able to keep touch with your business clients by such email. The email allows you to send or receiving messages at any part of the world. We can perk up our contacts with every one in this world by only using of emails. This internet facility is available for every 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 365 days in a year.
Lots of information is stored in the internet, which are the ideal advantages of using such internet technology. Most of the people are dependent on internet in order to improve their knowledge. You can also able to chat with your friends or business clients by using such internet, which will improve your relations effectively. One can also able to pay their telephone bills, electric bills in a single place without straining yourself in a long queues. The internet is the best source for satisfy all your thirst of hearing your favorite songs, videos and so on. The internet will offer you lots of advantages and some disadvantages as well.

Challenges

The rapid growth of the Internet, both in terms of data traffic and in terms of diversity of services, has led to a high complexity of the Internet architecture, which is ever harder to manage, the more the Internet grows and the more new services are added. Over time, a number of additional protocols have been put on top of the TCP/IP protocol suite, in order to accommodate the increased requirements of fixed and mobile Internet services. There are currently close to 40 different protocols on the data plane and more than 40 protocols on the control plane of the Internet.

The entirety of these protocols looks more like a patchwork than a consistent architecture that addresses current and future challenges. In the course of deploying these patches, almost all of the original architectural principles have been breached. This has led to a number of urgent problems, particularly in the areas of security and scalability. Some pundits even speculate that the Internet may soon be on the brink of collapsing, if its rapid growth continues.

The challenges resulting from the current patchwork architecture are manifold, and the goals for the envisioned architecture are sometimes conflicting. Although there is no common and agreed vision yet, most experts would probably agree that the Future Internet should be dependable, scalable, manageable, sustainable, and flexible in order to integrate new services yet unknown. The main challenge is to develop an Internet architecture that has all these attributes. Will it be possible to protect users from spam and malicious code, yet retain the openness of the Internet? How can privacy and accountability be reconciled? Can the Internet be open for a multitude of new services while at the same time ensuring high reliability?



References:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/informationenvironment.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
http://www.observatoire-immateriel.com/spip.php?article341