INTERNET USE BY STUDENTS OF TUMAINI UNIVERSITY DAR ES SALAAM COLLEGE (TUDARCO)

This article is based on a Master’s dissertation whose objective was to determine the purpose for which students of Tumaini University Dar es Salaam College (Tudarco) use the Internet (see www.tudarco.ac.tz/). It was to determine if students were using the Internet for academic purposes. The study also investigated the level of students’ access to the Internet, as well as the problems students faced in Internet use. The web site has specific information on faculties, institutes, and departments, including training programmes. The Internet Access Catalogue has been installed at the Campus and libraries, computer lab replacing the manual card catalogues.
Internet has simple and advanced search options, using software. Plans are underway to convert the manual catalogue of tumaini library into an online catalogue. The survey method was used as the basic method for data collection, employing the questionnaire and the interview. Participant observation and focus group discussion are other methods used. The study revealed that the level of students’ access to the Internet was low, and the major reason was that at the time of the study, computers with Internet facilities were inadequate.
The findings also revealed that the students who had access to the Internet were not using it effectively. They used it mainly for communication with friends and relatives more than for academic purposes. The cause of this was found to be lack of skills required for effective use of the internet. The study recommends the provision of more computers with Internet facilities, increasing Internet access speed, as well as providing more chances of training in Internet use.

Internet dependency on academic assessments

The use of internet has become a viral in educational field especially in completion of assessments. The main objective of this study is to analyse the use of internet in preparation of the assessments among college students of different academic levels and to see the pros and cons of using the internet oriented student assessments. The methodology adopted was a survey based upon predefined questionnaire to achieve the objective among university students. The study was conducted among the students with a random selection of students from Tumain University Dar es Salaam College. The research questions to be answered in this study were how the utilisation of Internet does differ from male students to female students for completing assessments What are the Pros and cons of utilization of internet for completing assessments How the utilization of Internet does differs from First year students to Final year students Regarding the advantages of the internet utilization of respondents mentioned as ease of work, observed that its time saving,  mentioned search engines tools and mentioned that the major advantage is having lots of information. 

 Maximum responses received mentioning the multi-tasking and the chances of plagiarism as the major disadvantage. The statistical analysis made in Origin pro with the data gathered and the response percentages on each queries from the respondents. At level, value alpha, it is concluded that there is no significant difference in the male and female student responses. Similarly the results indicates that the year of study have a significant effect on the approach towards the utilisation of internet.