Goa Institute Management 1

Internet

Role of Internet in the life of students of GIM class of

2010-12

Submitted to

Prof. Sharmila Veloso & Prof. Raghuveer Vernekar

In partial fulfilment of course requirements in

Management Communication

By

Prasant Singh (2010033),

Sheena Pathak (2010044),

Shraddha Thorat (2010045),

Srinivasan Margabandu (2010050)

PGP I - Goa Institute of Management

September 17, 2010

MEMORANDUM
DATE: September 20, 2010
TO: Raghuveer Vernekar, Professor, Goa Institute of Management
Sharmila Veloso, Professor, Goa Institute of Management
FROM: Prasant Singh, Student, Goa Institute of Management
Sheena Pathak, Student, Goa Institute of Management
Shraddha Thorat, Student, Goa Institute of Management
Srinivasan Margabandu, Student, Goa Institute of Management
SUBJECT: Role of Internet in the life of students of GIM class of 2010-12

Here is the report that you requested September 29 about the Role of Internet in the life of
students of GIM class 2010, Sanquelim. The study included both primary and secondary
research. The primary study focused on the relevance and usage of internet by the students of
Goa institute of management class of 2010 – 12.

The report studies the impact of Internet on the academic and social behaviour of PGP 2010-
12 students of Goa Institute of Management. It also analyses the various aspects of internet
usage like social networking, academic, entertainment, research and also GIM intranet. It
provides an insight in to then life and learning habits of MBA students and may be helpful for
future MBA aspirants of GIM.

We are grateful to our business communications Prof. Sharmila Veloso for helping us
develop the questionnaire. We are also thankful to our batch mates who responded
enthusiastically to your questionnaire thereby enabling us gather the primary data.

Please call Prof. Veloso, in case any additional information is required or any questions need
to be addressed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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 TRANSMITTAL MEMORANDUM …………………………………………………..... 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Purpose of the Report
The purpose of this report is (1) To study the impact of Internet on the academic and
social behavior of PGP 2010-12 students of Goa Institute of Management. (2) To provide an insight in
to the life and learning habits of MBA students (3) To explore the new learning and teaching methods
which would be helpful to Educational Institutes and Experts exploring new learning and teaching
methods.

A questionnaire survey has been prepared to learn about the campus community’s learning
habits, exploration methods and mainly internet usage. The survey includes 10 questions, touching
multiple facets of internet usage. This is distributed to the fellow PGP1 students.

Role of Internet in the life of GIM students

The survey that we conducted revealed that internet plays a very important role in the life of
GIM students. We can safely say that it is the backbone of the institute as far as connectivity
is concerned. Students use it to connect to seniors, peers, family members and friends.
Students use various social networking sites like facebook, orkut, tweeter etc. to stay
connected to people outside the campus.
The study also revealed that students take extensive help of internet for doing research,
assignments and readings.

Recommendations
a) Various educational institutions can device Intranet similar to GIM intranet to improve the
connectivity between students, faculty members and various other departments.

b) Prospective MBA students can get an insight into the methods of learning of students of
GIM.

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BACKGROUND:

Google, Wikipedia, Orkut, Facebook, Hotmail, Monster, Youtube, QuickMBA,

Timesofindia!!!! The list is never ending. From education to entertainment, from search-
engines to recruitment, from mails to news to ebooks to matrimonial, take any field, any area
and it is there on the internet. That is how we get information today.

All of us know the communication trends of the past. The past trends include face-to-face
communication, telephonic communication, fax, television and computer. Internet is the most
recent trend we have. Internet, also known as the ‘World Wide Web’, has changed our lives
significantly. The origin & history of internet date back to 1960s. Since then internet has been
constantly proliferating in terms of new websites, new areas of information and so on.
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The Internet, also known as the “information superhighway,” is a collection of computer

networks around the world. No one owns the Internet; it was started in the 1960s as a defense
network. Its anarchic design, which originally allowed the system to survive following a
nuclear attack, today permits free access to information. Millions of users around the world
access this system to send e-mail messages as well as data and files, access other computers,
access newsgroups and
even teach courses.

Students form a bigger chunk of internet users. They are a unique population. Occupying a
middle ground between childhood and adulthood, between work and leisure, college students
have been at the forefront of social change since the end of World War II. They were among
the first in the U.S. to use the Internet for communication, recreation and file sharing, and the
first to have regular broadband Internet access. Internet use first became widespread on
college campuses in the 1990s, and in many ways the Internet is a direct outcome of
university-based research. Yahoo!, Napster and many other Internet tools were created by
college students, and, while the vast majority of college students are simply Internet users, as
a group they can be considered pioneers. Studying college students’ Internet habits can yield
insight into future online trends.

The goal of this study was to learn about the Internet’s impact on college students’ daily
lives, and to determine the impact of that use on their academic and social routines.

Social Networking:

The speed with which new technologies have impacted on all aspects of society since the
advent of the Internet is phenomenal. There are enormous potential educational benefits on
harnessing new technologies. The use of social networking helps to bridge the gap between
the past technologies and the current electronic technologies.

A social network service is a platform that focuses on building and reflecting of social
networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share similar interests and/or activities.
Most of the social network services provide means for users to interact over the internet, such
as e-mail and instant messaging video conferencing. Social networking sites allow users to
share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks.
The students at GIM Sanquellium campus are exposed to various forms of e-networking,
either via wi-fi or through the intranet. According to the survey carried out we can conclude
that the main purpose of the students to subscribe to the social networking sites is to stay
connected with their friends, family and use this as a platform to connect to the outside world
for future professional prospects.

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RESEARCH AND ACADEMICS:

In the academic endeavor especially MBA, students need to follow two cycles: One, a cycle of
curricular sessions and the other, a cycle of self-learning. The classroom sessions include concept-
building and assignments. MBA classroom sessions mostly act as facilitation for the learning. The
subjects like HR, Marketing and Finance have a wide scope and hence can’t be learnt only through
books. In the classroom sessions, faculty only introduces students to the various areas and concepts
available. This is the reason why the credit system followed in the B-schools also has a major
proportion of self-reading and self-learning.

Apart from the regular subjects, soft skills like communication, presentation, leadership skills are also
important for management education. Softwares like MS Excel, SPSS are of immense importance
when it comes to managerial jobs.

In addition to academics, students take part in various Business Plan competitions, Ad campaigns,
Blogs, Paper presentations and Conferences. Also, music, dance, photography competitions and
various other endeavors are a part of MBA life. Students need to do a lot of self-initiated research for
all these. They need to look for online case studies, learning resources etc. Internet provides a helping
hand to the students in terms of learning and studying.

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Internet has emerged as a powerful tool for education. It is a confluence of all kinds of information
related to each and every field of education. It also allows teachers and students, sitting in far flung
areas, to interact, share and exchange information.

Searching Mechanism in the online environment is what makes all the difference. If finding relevant
content takes 2 minutes in case of internet then the same task takes 200 minutes in the case of
conventional resources.
Internet has various websites for learning the core concepts. For finance, for each of the concept we
have huge number of websites available. Google opens the door for almost every site for the students
and has really become a learning companion for students. For marketing, sites like QuickMBA.com,
online competitions help building and nurturing knowledge. For HR, there is enormous material
available on the net including case studies, applications of theories, expert opinions. For the case
studies given in the classes or in the competitions, sometimes students feel the data to be insufficient
in which case net provides the remaining data. Hence, both in terms of research and academics
internet is a friend and guide for students in general and MBA students in particular.

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Importance of Intranet for GIM Students:

The Internet’s a boon to all is a known fact. With its introduction to humans our life has
surely become more relaxed.

An Intranet helps in securely sharing data and information within a smaller network and
mostly used in private organisations. In GIM as well we students benefit from this wonder of
an invention! May it be interacting with our peers or sharing notes, playing LAN games on IP
messenger or publicising an event-you name it and the intranet aids in completing the task.
Sharing information and knowledge could not have had an easier medium; even the faculty
and staff are easily approachable via the Intranet. Various Committees and Cells stay
connected with the members and students alike through this channel and most events are even
publicised through it. Well with so much activity and tests and exams always sniffing their
way into our schedule, what better way to distress ourselves by having some adrenalin-rush
with the all time favourite-LAN gaming!

It’s a win-win situation for all! It helps build on the much needed soft skill-communication.
In addition, information can be shared very easily and at a quick pace! Last but not the least,it
just helps us do our bit for the environment-it’s eco-friendly! With no “notes” being
exchanged and only the transfer of data from one to the other; Intranet is sure to stay!!

Social Media

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Orkut and Twitter are no more just to interact with
the people you want to stay in touch with. They have now become synonymous with a
number of socially relevant causes. May it be the Meter jam campaign or to seek justice
regarding an incorrect judgement-yes, these networking sites have been the platform for
many issues. Saving the tiger, educating the girl child, sensitivity towards the environment
etc. are just a few to name. NGO’s find it a wonderful platform to seek volunteers and

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consider it a useful platform. Well, when so much’s going on here how can politics be far
behind! Mr. Barack Obama won the hearts of many by reaching out to his fellow countrymen
via a networking site and that’s what strengthened his campaign! In familiar terrain, students
of GIM greatly benefited by the seminar conducted during the annual fest-Samriddhi. The
seminar was regarding the relevance of Social Media and its importance. It’s strange how
technology can help us bring a group of humans together and even aid in raising funds for the
less fortunate and the bereaved. Social media brings together the public at large and lets them
participate and voice their opinion on a host of issues. Well that’s how the old adage
goes-“For the people, by the people and of thepeople”.

Usage of internet for the purpose of entertainment by GIM PGP-1s:

Videos are the most popular source of entertainment and students visit a lot of video
sites such as youtube, metacafe, vimeo and GoogleVideo to watch the latest movie trailers,
TV show spots, advertisements, news clips, funny videos, travel catalogues and how-to style
videos for hairstyle, makeup etc., The second most popular usage is with image sites such as
flickr, deviantART, cuteoverload etc,.Since we have a lot of aspiring photographers in our
college and many people take up photography as a hobby after seeing the lush greenery and
never ending beaches in Goa, these sites allow them upload, browse and share their images
with everyone and to create groups and find friends with like-minded interests.

Internet radio and streaming audio is another fantastic service that GIM students like.
Since they don’t have proper radio signal at the campus they turn to internet radio. Today,
many of the audio players, such as Microsoft Windows Media Player, Winamp, and the
iTunes player, already include a radio and in addition to these players, there are dozens of
online services that list millions of different stations and users' play lists, and online radio for
stations such as Pandora which allows people to specify a song or artist they like and then
generate a live radio station based on those songs. Slacker, Radio-locator, last.fm
and Live365 are also very popular allowing them to easily find radio stations and top
streaming music.

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Internet podcast and talk radio shows are radio broadcasts where one or more people
talk about something they enjoy, something interesting, about a service, etc. Students use
them to get latest information about speeches and announcements made by top management
people in organizations, political leaders etc. Also fitness and health conscious people use
dozens of locations on the Internet that can help them get in better physical shape, track your
fitness progress, suggest workouts, etc. One of students’ favorite sites in this regard is
DailyBurn formerly known as Gyminee. Movie lovers in GIM find interesting and
informative information about movies such as cast names, directors, year made, awards, etc.
using imdb, short for Internet Movie DataBase and many other local websites such as
bollywoodworld, bollywoodhungama etc.,

Students also use the internet extensively for gaming purposes. CounterStrike,
Civilization IV, Call of duty, fallout 3, the GTA series of games are some of the extremely
popular multiplayer games played via the internet. Casual gamers find entertainment via
playing simply designed, but addictive flash and java games from sites such as
miniclip.com,flashgames.com, zapak.com etc.,

A forum is a place for users to post questions, messages, and other conversations and
allow hundreds and even thousands of users to participate in something they enjoy. GIM
students use forums for catering to their various interests such as automobiles, fashion,
interior decoration, gardening etc,. Something that students will find themselves doing often
on the Internet is going from one page to another page just randomly surfing the Internet. A
fantastic site and service that students use to get the most out of surfing is stumbleupon,
which allows them to only surf pages people or other friends have found interesting allowing
them to find the most interesting pages on the Internet. Finally, they get entertainment by just
searching for it. Lots of entertainment channels are there over the internet.

METHOD:

To assess the importance of internet in the life of PGP1 2010-12 of Goa Institute of
management, we conducted an online survey. We created a Google spread sheet and sent it
across to all the PGP1 students of Goa Institute of Management over the GIM intranet. The
survey consisted of 10 questions divided into 5 headers namely general usage of internet,
social networking, research, academics, and entertainment.

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We prepared 2-3 questions under each header to analyse various aspects of internet usage
habits of students.

Following are the questions that were asked in the questionnaire:

GENEARL USAGE:

• For how many hours do you use the internet daily?

• What is the purpose of internet usage in your opinion?

SOCIAL NETWORKING:

• How do you find social networking sites as a medium of expression?

• Whom do you speak to the most using social networking sites?

• To what extent do you think is the internet helpful in staying connected to the outside
world?

GIM INTRANET:
• What kind of material do you access on the GIM intranet?
• To what extent does GIM intranet help you establish contacts with your peers and
seniors?

RESEARCH:
• Do you use internet for research?
• How useful do you find the internet as a tool for research?

ACADEMICS:

• Do you access internet for doing your assignments?

• How helpful do you find internet for doing your assignments?

• How many times referring to the internet has actually helped you with your
assignments?

Questionnaire was designed keeping in mind the information that was required. First few
questions looked at the general usage habits, then social networking and

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ANALYSIS:

54 students took part in the survey and following are the outcome of the responses made by
students.

General usage of internet:

First question was aimed at getting the internet usage habit of students. Out of 54 students, 20
students use internet for more than 4 hours. Almost 70 % students use internet for more than
3 hours. This shows that internet has become a very important part of the life of the students.
You can see graphical interpretation of the result in the Exhibit 1.

Purpose of internet usage:

The study also revealed that the students use internet for various activities like social
networking, academics, research, and entertainment etc. 43 out of 53 students use internet for
academic purpose. Social Networking is second on the list with 39 respondents followed by
entertainment, chat room and shopping. See exhibit 2 for details.

Social networking:

In this category we tested students on various parameters such as how students find social
networking as a medium of expression, the people whom they talk to most of the times and
how helpful is internet for them in staying connected with their family and friends. Most of
the students find internet very useful in staying connected with people. It is very cost
effective compared to other modes of communication like mobile phones. On a scale of 1 to 5
the average score was 4.38. That indicated most of the students find internet very useful in
staying connected with friends and family.

Also according to the data collected, more than 90 % students use social networking sites to
get in touch with friends. See exhibit 6.

Students also find social networking sites as a very good medium of expression where they
can express their feeling, share videos and photos. The average score was 3.51 out of 5.

Academics:

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From the data that we have gathered we can conclusively say that student do take help of
internet for doing their assignment. 27 students replied that they always use internet for doing
their assignments. 25 more said they use it sometimes. Only 1 student answered negatively to
the question. See exhibit 5.

Research:

This category of questionnaire included questions directed at learning habits of students.

Whether or not they use internet for research purpose? Most of the students said they do use
internet for research. 51 respondents said they use internet for research while only 3 answered
in negative. Again students find internet as a very handy tool for research. The average score
out of a scale of 1 to 5 here was 4.2.

Gim Intranet:

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

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Exhibit 4

Exhibit 5

Exhibit 6

Exhibit 7

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