Abstract
It is hardly an exaggeration to observe that the Internet has had, is having, and will have a major impact on research methods at every stage of the research process, and beyond. As is by now well known, much of the technical foundation for the Internet was laid during the 1960s by research on computer networking carried out under the auspices of the Advanced Research Program Agency of the United States Department of Defense, and at the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom (an engaging historical account can be found in Naughton, 1999). A period of slow and steady growth followed, with the Internet increasingly taking on an international, and heavily academic, character. The introduction of the World Wide Web fostered a period of substantial expansion in use of the Internet, opening the way for a period of commercial and institutional exploitation and utilization that still continues today.