Many teachers and librarians are concerned about the quality of research our students are producing because of the Internet. The prevailing thought is that students need to be doing “REAL RESEARCH” using scholarly tools like peer-reviewed journals and academic databases. General websites are grudgingly accepted, if at all, as sources for research papers. We tend to want them to be “scholarly” and use authoritative sources. When someone mentions that students search Google first and library databases second, we cringe and lament the demise of scholarship in the 21st century.

I would like to propose an alternate and potentially controversial view of this dilemma. That is, that there are TWO kinds of scholarship: Academic Scholarship and Authentic Scholarship. “Authentic” is a term used in teacher education to refer to assessments and learning environments that directly apply to the real world. When a teacher switches from a multiple-choice final exam to a project that relates to a problem or question in the “real world,” they are said to be using a more authentic method of assessment.

Most people, after getting out of school, don’t learn from reading a textbook any more. They learn from sharing ideas with others. The Internet has totally revolutionized (I think it’s safe to use that term) how individuals communicate with each other and share ideas. Once we get out of school and are in the “real world,” we still learn and we still contribute to the world of knowledge, but by connecting with others and communicating with them. When we use the Internet (via email lists, blogs, wikis, podcasting, Flickr, etc.) to connect our ideas with those of others, both by consuming their information and connecting our own ideas with theirs, we are contributing to the knowledge of the world. That’s legitimate scholarship as much as is reading peer-reviewed journals and properly citing them.

David Weinberger has said that all knowledge is socially constructed. That is, we do not learn in a vacuum. We learn (construct knowledge) by interacting with others. What better tool than the Internet for that?

My suggestion is that there are two kinds of scholarship, both legitimate and both serving a purpose.

Academic scholarship is done within the context of schools and serves to add to the world of knowledge by demonstrating the abilities of evaluating information sources and organizing one’s thoughts into well-crafted research paper.

Authentic scholarship is done by constructing knowledge through being a contributor to, not just a consumer of, information. This process has been greatly enhanced by the Internet-based tools that have been developing during the last several years, and which are still growing. By reading and reflecting, and THEN by writing/recording/documenting your ideas, you can contribute to learning around the world. People are wanting to learn about your area of interest, no matter how esoteric, and they will find you if you use the Internet to learn and then to contribute to the global learning environment that the Internet has made possible.