Research Note on E-teaching

E-teaching - Eroding the Stronghold of Teachers
Gerhard Chroust
Kepler University Linz, Austria
gc(at)sea.uni-linz.ac.at

Abstract
Internet and the World Wide Web have probably caused the most dramatic paradigm changes in learning
and teaching, even more than the printed book. The basic objective of teaching is to transform tacit (’internal’)
knowledge of an creator into tacit knowledge of another person, in academia usually by a third person - a Tea-
cher. Therefore communication is of key importance in teaching, both synchronous communication between the
Teacher and the Student, and - nowadays equally important - accessing and using stored information (libraries
and repositories). Especially in the case of stored information their availability, access, and retrieval are heavily
dependent on the available communication technology.
In this paper we consider the evolution of communication technology (section 1) from speech, to handwritten
and typeset books, to photocopying and fax, to e-mail, to books produced from camera-ready anuscripts, to the
World Wide Web with powerful search engines, to ubiquitous computing, and finally to social computing. We
discuss how the essential processes of Dissemination, and Teaching (section 2) and the existing Teaching Ty-
pes (section 3). In section 4 we discuss basic factors of the teaching process together with their dependence on
technological progress. this evolution impacts the knowledge acquisition and dissemination by the Teacher espe-
cially in relation to the means of the Student for independent access and acquisition of knowledge. Concentrating
on academic institutions we identify three groups of factors of the educational process: Time factors, verificati-
on/validation factors and impact factors. The new technologies tend to weaken the position of the teachers versus
the students with respect to these factors..
We continue by discussing some emerging effects of the introduction of the new technologies (section 5).
foremost questions of verification, validation, lead-time of the teacher and surpsing the teacher. We close with a
discussion of consequences for the academic institutions.

Keywords: E-teaching; academic education; evolution of communication technology; World Wide Web; lead-
time of the Teacher; evolution verification; authentication; quality assurance

1 Communication in Teaching
1.1 Knowledge Transfer and Communication
The basic objective of teaching is to transform tacit (’internal’) knowledge of an Originator into tacit knowledge
of another person. In our simplified model of knowledge dissemination we use three prototypical roles (fig. 1):

the Originator : The person who created some knowledge which is valuable and is considered to become a part
of the scientific knowledge base.
the Teacher : The person who acquires this scientific knowledge in order to pass it along to the Student. It should
be noted, that in other circumstances he/she also appear in the role of a Student.

the Student : The person trying to absorb the scientific knowledge available.
Classically (following the SECI-model of [Nonaka-95]) teaching is achieved by first transforming the tacit know-
ledge into explicit knowledge, which then can be transmitted to another person. Due to division of work and
specialization (one of the basic steps towards civilization) the transfer of knowledge is usually taken care of by
specialists (the ’Teachers’). Especially in academic institutions (typically universities) the teaching process usually
is closely connected to research: for example Austrian universities are by law obliged to perform ’research guided’
teaching. This means that Teachers is not only transmitters of knowledge but also Originators. Communication
of knowledge is a key in this process (fig. 1). On the other hand the Teacher will not create all the knowledge

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by himself/herself: accumulation of knowledge is a generation-long, multi-person undertaking where the Teacher
himself also acts as a Student in other situations (fig. 1).
Many Originators themselves have long passed away. In this case the Teacher has to rely on ’second hand’ know-
ledge which has been preserved (and perhaps even distorted).
In the sequel we will analyse the various processes and how they have changed over time and with technology.

Fig. 1: The basic teaching process

1.2 Relevant Advances in Communication Technologies
Communication is the key to successful knowledge acquisition and dissemination. Historically ICT has provided a
multitude of dramatically new communication methods which also impact teaching. Fig. 2 shows key steps of the
evolution of communication technology in roughly chronological order. The columns have the following meaning:
technology : major steps of technology achievement. In [Chroust-03b] a lengthy discussion of the individual tech-
nologies and their essence appears. Here we have added a new, upcoming one, social computing. Today’s
speed, ease-of-use and ubiquity of the internet makes it feasible and useful to utilize the internet as a ba-
sis for community based work. Like in the real world where we ask somebody, we seek and get advice,
recommendations and help via the internet, even from total strangers.
new achievement : major new qualities of the new technology. We have selected only those qualities which we be-
lieve are relevant for communicating knowledge from one generation to the next [Chroust-98f] [Chroust-99i]
[Chroust-99b][Kraut-94], see below for details.
document production and access effort : What is the effort (time/cost) to produce a document? What does it
take to gain access to the document?
persistence of document : How persistent is the contents of the document, can it be easily changed, are changes
noticeable?
immediate effect : some of the effects on the users (especially in the context of e-teaching) are mentioned.

In column 2 of Fig. 2 we have identified a major achievement of each respective technology:
abstraction : Without abstraction we would never be able to speak about the future, about concepts, about fiction
etc. We would be limited to physically observable facts and would have difficulties in communicating them
to others, especially over time.
persistence : Only by committing markings to some persistent medium for recording data it has been possible to
transport information over time and space [Chiera-68, Doblhofer-90, Noveck-75]. Initially only the persi-
stence in time could be achieved, since the value (and sometimes also volume) of these documents posed
economic and/or practical limits to transportability.
volume reproducibility : Printing has allowed, in contrast to hand writing, a practically unlimited production of
copies and has thus permitted the sharing of information with many.

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Technology new achievement document production ("P:") persistence of immediate effect
and access effort ("A:") document
Speech abstraction P: n.a. , A:n.a none transformation of tacit into explicit
knowledge

Handwritten persistence P: usually not very high (de- depending on preservation of original texts
texts pending on material), material
A: high
Typeset volume reproduci- P: very high, very long ability to disseminate, bringing know-
Printed Books bility A: medium (book shop) ledge to people (push instead of pull)

photocopy/fax individual instant P: easy, fast, high, like paper transmission and dissemination of indi-
reproduceability, A: (as receiver) very small vidual material without need for a pu-
fast interchange blisher/printer
of text/graphic
material
E-mail fast interchange of P: minimal, very high, speed of transmission, material can be
machine readable A: minimal when stored immediately excerpted and worked on,
material seamlessness, push technology with re-
spect to communication

books with individual produc- P: low to medium for book high, when reducing the time to publish, reducing
camera-ready tion of papers in producer (effort carried by printed, low cost
supplied high quality, chea- submittors) when on
material per book producdti- A: book market and electronic electronic
on offerings media,
unnoticeable
changes
World Wide cooperation, pull P: very low, very low ability of find from the computer all
Web / search technology A: very low which is ’known’ in no time. ’pull tech-
engines nology’ with respect to communication

Ubiquitous immediate availabi- P: depends on document, n.a. the advantages of ICT become mobile,
Computing lity of access A: makes access easier can be used anytime, anyplace

Social cooperative advice P: like e-mail., none, if not being able access the ’whole’ commu-
Computing and guidance by A: like email or easier stored nity ad libidum , help to filter the enour-
peers permanently mous flood of information,

Fig. 2: Communication Paradigms

instant individual reproducibility : Printed books allowed the distribution of knowledge to many. For cost ef-
fectiveness rather large quantities had to be produced by a lengthy process. Photocopying (e.g. xerography,
nowadays also digital scanning) allows to produce a small amount of copies quickly at a reasonable price
and in high quality.
fast interchange of machine readable material : E-mail has permitted the transport of machine readable infor-
mation over long distances in practically zero time. Moreover the sent document could immediately be
processed, modified, augmented etc. This is a property not shared by letters or fax. E-mail pushes the infor-
mation on the recipient (in the negative case also spam!)
individual production of high quality papers : Desktop Publishing allows the production of aesthetically plea-
sing documents which have the same appearance as type-set publications. This is also the basis for producing
camera-ready books. This reduces the ’Time-to-availability’ to a small fraction of time as compared to type
setting.
cooperation, pull technology : World Wide Web (WWW) has allowed world wide cooperative exchange of infor-
mation thanks to powerful search engines. Easy retrieval of facts has become possible. Information is pulled
from the WWW; potential users do not have to wait until information has been pushed towards them.
immediate availability of access : Immediate access to practically any information irrespective of location is a
supportive technology, making some of the other technologies highly useful. The Library of Congress and
all data of the Bureau of Census etc. in their most up-to-date form are available on the mobile phone or on
some wearable computer outfit [Hoffnagle-99, Cole-97],

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cooperative advice and guidance by peers : It is easy and fast to ask one’s peers to get information presumed to
be valuable. In their daily life humans have always sought advice from experts or peers. Systems were build
to support people in their job performance via so-called Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS,
[Banerji-95, Chroust-00e, Burgess-00, Racine-04]. Today’s system allow to observe user behavior and based
on the behavior of peers, these systems advise other users with respect to their actions or decisions (’recom-
mender systems’ [Balabanovic-97, Gams-02, Mertens-97, Pu-06, Resnik-97]. Obviously these possibilities
offer a Pandora’s box!

2 The Knowledge Dissemination Process
2.1 The subprocesses of dissemination
To understand the changes technology has affected for e-Teaching and the position of the Teacher the whole
knowledge dissemination process must be considered from its very beginning. Based on [Chroust-05v, Fig. 3] we
can describe the process like in fig. 3. The details of fig. 3 will be discussed below.

Fig. 3: Basic Delays in Academic Education

We can distinguish the following key activities (subprocesses), some of them have further subprocesses, see fig. 4.

Creating Knowledge : generating new knowledge based on existing knowledge. We can split this process into
several complimentary processes:
searching : identifying information, finding it somewhere, collecting it, and actually accessing the contents
authenticating/validating : once a document is identified the question is whether it is a true representation
of what it pretends to be. If this is true, then its validity has to be established, to a large extend by
comparing with other documentation (which also might have to be searched.
digesting : working with the material, understanding it, prepare it for presentations etc. This may give raise
to looking for more (refining) which might lead to another search etc.
filtering : especially for teaching the Student a careful selection of material is needed
presenting : finally the newly created knowledge has to be brought into a form amenable to present to others
(book, paper, speech, ..) this might include presentations to a conference.
Publication : in the wider sense, i.e. making it available to a larger public. Traditionally because of the consi-
derable investments (copying, type setting, printing etc.) some evaluation had to take place before actually
starting the production. We see two essential subprocesses

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authenticating and validating : the proposed text to be disseminated. Publishers want to make sure that the
author(s) are not faked and that the material stands up in comparison to other material. To this effect
editorial boards, programme committees etc. are institutionalized.
production : of the actual artefact to be distributed,
Teaching : i.e. trying to collect, organize, existing knowledge and preparing it for presentation to the Student The
same subprocesses can be distinguished (with minor semantic differences): searching, authenticating and
validating, digesting, ﬁltering, presenting.

Fig. 4: Subprocesses of Knowledge Generation and Teaching

2.2 The Student’s Learning Process
In order to understand the changing relations between Teacher and Student we also have to sketch the essential
processes of learning also with the eyes of the Student.

Fig. 5: The Student’s Learning Process

The ﬁve important processes are discussed below. They differ from section 2.1 only in minor ways.

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digesting : receiving the information from the teacher, classically in the form of a
rechecking : During digesting the Student might want to check back whether the citation, explanations etc. were
correct, checking the sources used/given by the Teacher In many cases this would additionally cause some
searching for additional material (’refining’) the presented material, preferable from the original material
sources given by the Teacher.
searching : same as in section 2.1
authenticating and validating : same as in section 2.1
Fig. 5 shows a second trigger besides the teaching of a Teacher. A serendipity way of searching available sources
for interesting relevant material, often not related to the topic of teaching. Nevertheless this searching might also
provide useful material (e.g.unexpectedly finding an old mathematics book from ones grandfather).

3 Basic Types of Teaching Processes
Ignoring some details we can today identify four types of Teaching Environments which emerged in parallel and
were supported and enabled by the advances in ICT [Kraut-94]. Technology provided both communication and
storage means.

3.1 Speech-based Teaching
Before the invention of writing [Chiera-68] the prototypical teaching process looked as in Fig. 1. The knowled-
ge dissemination process was purely face-to-face. The memory of persons was the only repository for previous
knowledge.

3.2 Single-copy based Teaching
The utilization of writing, once it achieved a sufficient ability to express concepts and complex notions [Caubet-01,
Chiera-68], brought about a considerable paradigm change [Chroust-98f]: the personal link between Originator and
Teacher lost its key importance (Fig. 7). This personal link was paralleled or even replaced by stored documents.
This established a certain persistence of the Originator’s work. Recording used all kinds of media, clay tablets fig.
6, parchment, paper; etc.

Without a direct link to the Originator, the Teacher has
to rely on written material on an intermediate storage
medium to acquire the knowledge for presentation to
the Student. A body of knowledge accumulated. The
libraries and archives of monasteries were key centers
of scientific research and documentation. Authenticity
could be established even if the Originator was not ac-
cessible or dead. The transmission from the Teacher to
the Student was and still is largely face-to-face (Fig. 7).

Fig. 6: Mesopotamian Clay Tablet

The access to these usual single copies was obviously difficult and involved effort and even dangers (travel!).

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Fig. 7: Flow of dissemination for handwritten books

3.3 Printed-book based Teaching
Printing technology permitted large volume documents and books to be produced in quantities, especially since a
large portion of the cost was fixed cost, independent of the number of copies. Off-prints came rather cheap. The
value and the size allowed to transport/send books and sell them in different places. At this point the Student could
- and eventually did - acquire books themselves, be it by buying or by borrowing from the university libraries (fig.
8). Suddenly there was a real chance to verify the teachings of a Teachings.
Especially with the new combined technology of desk-top publishing and photomechanical reproduction the price
for book production dropped and a new type of books appeared: text books, specifically tailored for supporting
studying (both for the students and the teachers). Teachers got considerable material pre-fabricated, ready to use.
The book industry flourished. In parallel not only books but also scientific journals were growing.
Desk top publishing and assembling books from camera-ready submitted material did not basically change the
paradigm, but generated, due to the reduced costs, a flood of new books on the market,especially once the printers
were able to directly process material without the detour via printed paper. Especially with printing etc. also another
problem arose: more and more researcher wrote about the original material, refining it, discussing it, providing
"second sources".

Fig. 8: Flow of dissemination for printed books

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3.4 The World Wide Web based Teaching
The World Wide Web has brought about a new phenomenon (ﬁg. 9): everybody can put material on the Web and -
due to search engines - also has a good chance that the material is seen/read by a world-wide public. Publication
and dissemination are no any more channeled and thus controlled by publishing houses. Looking back into history,
in 1517 Martin Luther’s way to publish outside the established (church) channels was to nail a document to a
church doorof a small village. Mayn of its inhabitants were probably unable to read!
Nowadays the World Wide Web is bidirectional: everybody can read everybody else’s posting (at least theore-
tically). The Web is becoming an enormously large document repository. Memorizing facts looses some of its
importance in favor of just-in-time access to the internet.

Fig. 9: The inﬂuence of the World Wide Web

3.5 The social computing based Teaching
Social computing, utilizing what also is called Web 2.0 [Wikipedia-e, ⇒ Web 2.0], i.e. the technologically sup-
ported communication anywhere, anytime, allows users to get quick reactions to questions asked by to other users.
The Web binds persons into a network. The Web is able to pro-actively offer services like making personalized sug-
gestions about interesting books or restaurants nearby, so-called ’recommender system’ [Balabanovic-97]). Soon
this will be also modify the teaching process.

Fig. 10: The Web 2.0 society

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A danger is that people will not bother to memorize or learn anything, they will rely more and more on just-in-time
advice from just anyone - reliable and knowledgable or not. It seems to be less cumbersome to ask somebody and
to get a quick answer than bothering oneself to recherche facts.
The effects and the impacts are not really clear yet. The individuals and the society have still to learn this new
medium, to understand the potential and the dangers. To some extent we revert from a reading society to a verbally
and iconic oriented ’question asking’ society (fig. 10).

4 Essential factors in the Teaching Process
Based on the description of the subprocesses above (section 2.1) and the various technologies we can identify
certain key factors and discuss their change due to the different technologies [Chroust-05v]:

Time Factors :
The delays needed for various activities have been dramatically reduces by the new technologies. Especially
transmission of information has been reduced to practically zero delay. Some key timings in the teaching
process are shown in fig. 3:
Time-to-Emergence : How long does it take from the start of the knowledge creation (vague as this notion
is) until the work is finished and ready to be made public?
Time-to-availability : How long does it take until the knowledge is brought into some material form to be
made available to a (even limited) public?
Time-to-Teachability : When is the knowledge in a form ready to be taught to the Student (or attendees of
a seminar)?
Time-to-Delivery : When is the knowledge eventually actually thought to the students?

Time-to-xx actor Single-copy based printed book based World-wide Web / social computing
email based
T-to-emergence Teacher very long very long long long
(T-emerg)
comment faster production due faster communication faster community
to better (e-mail), better reaction
communication communication
(author - reviewers) between stakeholders
T-to-emergence Student n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.
comment not a student activity not a student activity not a student activity not a student activity
T-to-availability Teacher very long long same as T-emerg same as T-emerg
comment long production faster production and reduction due to faster still faster due to
distribution communication of increased
reviewers peer-interaction
T-to-availability Student ∞ long same as T-emerg same as T-emerg
not feasible long, but can be done no entry control no entry control
via library search
T-to-delivery Teacher long long T-emerg T-emerg
T-to-challenge Student ∞ long short very short
comment not accessible cost, ordering search via internet even shorter (asking
peers)
T-to-surprise Student ∞ unlikely faster than teacher! faster than Teacher!
comment not accessible cost, ordering immediate even shorter (asking
accessibility peers)

Fig. 11: Technology’s influence on Timing

Verification/Validation Factors :
Knowledge passed on in a teaching process need not be correct. We distinguish verification (How can one
assure that the knowledge one receives is a true replica of what was created?).
The scientific paradigm implies that the process of creation of knowledge is as [Haux-98, p.9] formula-
tes (translated) a methodical process systematically performed, with inter-subjectively retraceable, goal-
oriented research and knowledge creation.

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To consider verification by the Student it is necessary to understand the effort needed to verify the correctness
of a claim made by the Teacher. The Student would like to check against the original document as produced
by the Originator ("re-tracing"). One has to take into account whether there is a feasible and realistic chance
to access the original document, considering both the time effort and the financial expenses. Cost and effort
depend to a large extend on the applicable technology.
A second issue is validation. Validation means checking whether the knowledge is correct, i.e. that is a cor-
rect interpretation of facts or compatible with other knowledge. Here the correctness of the offered knowled-
ge has to be compared with and measured against existing other knowledge, facts, etc. Key factors supporting
verification and validation are:
persistence : Can the knowledge change/be changed without any indication. Will it be in its place in the
future?
traceability/verifyability : Having a copy of the knowledge, can one trace it back to its roots? Can one
establish that the knowledge was transferred unaltered?. What is the effort to do so?
domain accessibility : How easy is it to find similar, supporting, contradicting material in the domain of
discourse, often called the ’Body of Knowledge’ [ISO19759-01, PMI-05] e.g. alternate, competing
information and paradigms (which often are suppressed or stifled, see [Kuhn-70]).

factor actor Single-copy based printed book based World-wide Web / social computing
email based
persistence Teacher long-lived longlived, unsure unsure
comment only destroyed by multiple copies in uncontrolled, uncontrolled,
catastrophe (fire, official archives unorganised unorganised
iconoclasts, ....) (Library of Congress,
etc.)
Student inaccessible longlived, archived vague vague
traceability/ ve- Teacher difficult good fast, but unreliable fast, but unreliable,
rifyability
comment multiple copies adresses and/or asking ’the
available contents might change community’ might
without notice help but is unreliable

traceability/ ve- Student impossible possible fast, but unreliable fast, but unreliable,
rifyability
comment less inhibition against
asking ’stupid
questions’
validation Teacher very difficult easy (book shops and very easy and fast very easy and fast
libraries)
comment control of publication trash recognition
by powerful difficult
institutions (church!),
lobbyists
validation Student impossible easy (book shops and very easy and fast, very easy and fast
libraries),
comment control of publication danger of flooding danger of flooding
by powerful with trash , trash with trash trash
institutions (church!) recognition difficult recognition difficult
or lobbyist, or teacher,
alternate para- Teacher very difficult difficult very easy, but flooding very easy, but flooding
digm knowledge
comment control of publication
by powerful
institutions (church!)
or lobbyists
alternate para- Student impossible difficult very easy, but flooding very easy, but flooding
digm knowledge

Fig. 12: Technology’s influence on Verification and Validation

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Impact Factors : How many Students can a Teacher reach with his/her knowledge. What is the area which can be
reached by a Teacher to collect material and existing knowledge?

aura of the Teacher : The aura [Chroust-03a] can be understood as the "totality of all influences and effects
around a person" [Kotzian-98] or the "subspace which limits the effective presence of an object in a
given medium" [Gross-97, p.98ff]. How many addressees can be reached? How far is the influence of
the Teacher felt?
source domain : How large is the area/domain from which information and knowledge can meaningful be
consumed. This is, so to speak, the counterpart to the aura. It is the domain from which a researcher or
teacher draws information in order to compare and validate his knowledge.

factor actor Single-copy based printed book based World-wide Web / social computing
email based
aura Teacher small larger world wide world wide
comment recommender system!
source domain Teacher small larger world wide world wide
source domaine Student null larger world wide world wide

Fig. 13: Technology’s influence on Impact Factors

5 Emergent Effects - eroding the Stronghold of the Teacher
The indicated technology changes have far reaching consequences on society - far more than can be discussed
here. We will concentrate on the position of teachers, especially in relation to the students.

5.1 Multiplication of stakeholders
We have to recognize that with World WideWeb the players in this ’dissemination game’ got multiplied. New
technologies allow a much more details and wider search, but also more researchers are at work. This means that
despite of the increased speed of search machines etc. the inspection and analysis of the material needs more effort.

Fig. 14: Overview of e-teaching

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5.2 Verification/Validation by Students
As long as a Teacher teaches following a text book (often his own!) there is little danger that the Student will detect
major discrepancies - except for typos or slips of the tongue. Looking into other text books did not occur to a larger
extent.
Nowadays it is easy to consult the World Wide Web (e.g. Wikipedia [Wikipedia-e]). Thus it is easy to find alternate
sources for the same material - often unknown to the teacher - which might give different definitions, interpretati-
ons, etc.

5.3 Lost Lead-time of the Teacher
Dissemination of knowledge needs a certain lead-time for the Teacher to fulfil the subprocesses shown in fig.
4. He/she has to acquire information, analyze, comprehend (’digest’) the material, and finally prepare teaching
material. Only then the Teacher would be ready to lecture about this subject ("Time-to-Teaching"). In the classical
university it will then take some time until the material is actually presented to the Student (waiting for the next
term or announcement of a course, etc, giving . the Teacher perhaps some additional breathing time.
Under the classical technologies the Student were unlikely or even incapable of getting the material before the
Teacher had presented it. We call this the Teacher’s "lead-time". It is the time the Teacher is able to acquire the
knowledge earlier than the Student. The lead-time is - so to speak - the safeguard against surprises. The value of
lead-time could easily become negative, indicating that the Student is ’faster’ than the Teacher and thus is able to
’surprise’ the Teacher.

5.4 Informal Channels
In a scientific community the key actors usually know one another. This also means, that they know what their
colleagues are working at, what knowledge the are just trying to create. Thus even if a Student detects a ’new’
document on the internet, just from the author and/or the title another colleague can make an educated guess what
is written in there.
These informal channels are established through conferences, meetings and sometimes by explicit information
interchange. The speed up by e-mail/internet has considerably reduced the Time-to-delivery (cf. fig. 3) and thus
has reduced the chance for an ’unintended’, informal information exchange.

5.5 Alternative Ideas / Challenging the Teacher
Only with the World Wide Web unorthodox ideas have a good change to be distributed. Being caught in one’s own
paradigm (cf. [Kuhn-70]) a Teacher might not realize an idea or ignore it until a Student confronts him/her with it.
Chances are good that the Teacher is completely surprised by this.

5.6 No-name papers / Surprising the Teacher
An interesting question is how easily a Student can surprise the Teacher with new knowledge acquired somewhere
else?
The Student might by chance (serendipity!) come across some knowledge and present it to the Teacher, perhaps in
order to impress or embarrass the Teacher. The concrete document (e.g. a paper or even a book) might be unknown
to the Teacher. Usually we expect that the Teacher is aware of his/her field of expertise. How much surprise does
the newly shown document hold for him?

6 Summary
The considerations above have considerable consequence on the Teaching paradigm of our days:

Reduced value of stored knowledge : The value of accumulating information will diminish in favor of a just-
in-time hunt for the latest information on a given topic [Schneider-96]. This allows to abolish most of the
contents of ’shadow copies’ in one’s file cabinet, in the internet one finds these articles faster and more
reliably.

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Loss of stability and persistence of documentation : We have to live with the fact that the information which
we acquire from the Web will be unstable, volatile and often changed. Ways to ensure the permanence and
authenticity of results once published have to be designed.
Lost quality control : Currently the Internet has a problem with quality assurance due the possibility of direct,
unconstrained publishing. At the same time the filtering mechanism which helped the Teacher to distinguis-
hed ’valid’ from ’invalid’ knowledge via publishers and selected peers (with all the uncertainty connected
with validity in science) seems to be lost.
Lost lead time/surprise : Although all previous changes in technology reduced the critical time delays, only with
Internet and World Wide Web the Students came into a situation where they could easily overtake the Teacher
with respect to acquisition of new information (perhaps even knowledge) depriving the Teacher of his lead-
time. The Student presenting to the Teacher a text freshly loaded down from the Internet might surprise the
Teacher.
Improving verification/validation need : New verification and quality assurance is needed. Verification and qua-
lity assurance (previously done by publishers and programme committees) must be (re-)introduced in an
appropriate way in order to eliminate the uncertainty for pseudo-knowledge on the Internet.
Student emancipation : The university system will have to change [Chroust-98f] [Chroust-99b] by helping the
student to do more research on their own and helping them to distinguish the quality of documents found on
the Internet ("trash-filter").
Changed role of the Teacher : The role and the self-understanding of the Teacher will change. He/she cannot
anymore rely on a large lead-time and believe to be immune against outsiders with good ideas. The Teacher
will become more an advisor/moderator and interpreter than the owner of knowledge and less of ’lecturers’.
And they have to accept the sudden appearance of hitherto unknown information.

Summing up we see that the change in technology (especially World Wide Web) together with ubiquitous com-
puting have caused tremendous changes in the scientific domain. And this strongly affects the relation between
students and Teachers, call for a new role understanding of Teachers.

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