| This study examined the extent to which Biglan's categorization of the disciplines was related to faculty level of adoption, frequency of use, duration of use, and purposes for using the World Wide Web (WWW). Biglan categorized the disciplines using three sets of attributes: hard vs. soft, pure vs. applied, and life vs. nonlife. Further, Biglan found that these attributes contributed to differences in the structure and output of university departments as measured by: level of social connectedness, commitment, and scholarly output.; This study analyzed the use of the WWW by faculty in eight departments at the University of Maryland, College Park in four non-life Biglan categories: English and History (soft/pure), Business and Management and Economics (soft/applied), Physics and Mathematics (hard/pure), and Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering (hard/applied). Both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to determine if Biglan category was related to level of adoption, frequency and extent of use, and purposes for which faculty use the WWW.; The entire population of faculty (N = 446) in the eight departments were surveyed. Two hundred sixty-two surveys were returned for a 58.7% response rate. Survey results supported the hypotheses that faculty in the hard/applied disciplines would use the WWW more frequently, for longer periods of time, and for more purposes than faculty in the other three Biglan categories, and the soft/pure disciplines would use the WWW less than faculty in the other three Biglan categories.; Interviews were conducted with 55 faculty who were identified as adopters in the survey to determine why and how faculty were using the WWW. The interviews confirmed that the WWW was considered most useful for research purposes followed by teaching and service uses. In disciplines where WWW use was low, the three primary reasons given for lack of use were limited availability of relevant resources, lack of technical assistants, and a lack of institutional incentives.; This study's findings have implications for administrators developing policies for faculty computer use and for their expectations about how quickly and how far WWW use among the faculty is likely to proceed. |
