This book explores the various ways in which computer networking, and more specifically the Internet, is changing the practices, the structure, and the products of academic scholarship. It considers research, teaching, and dissemination of knowledge across a range of disciplines in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences in order to identify particular uses of networking that will come to constitute the academic world of the future.

The contributors consider such themes as how networking and particular software environments can be used to support inquiry within research specialties and how scholars in diverse disciplines respond to the availability of new networked channels of scholarly communication. In the context of education, they argue that networking can reconfigure the process of learning, encompassing new audiences, new relationships with teachers, and new learning skills adapted for the network environment. The products of such new configurations are also discussed. The future of electronic journal publication is considered by innovators who have designed some of the first experiments in refereed electronic journal publication. Finally, the new responsibilities and roles of the academic library and academic publishers in a networked environment are debated.