While many Web sites serve to distract, there's an inherent usefulness to computers and the Internet. If there wasn't, companies wouldn't use them in the workplace. Take advantage of these online sites to make your academic life easier!
Wikipedia
Currently ranked as the 15th most visited site by Alexa.com, "the free encyclopedia" can give you a leg up on any research project or paper.
You can even contribute to Wikipedia, if you're so inclined, by clicking "edit this page" at the top of almost any article. And that's the problem. When so many Internet users have editorial control there's no guarantee on the quality and accuracy of content.
So use Wikipedia freely, contribute, but employ caution and find corroborating sources before relying on anything you glean from the site.
Also try not to cite Wikipedia as your primary source -- most professors won't look kindly on it.
Visit http://en.wikipedia.org for the English version of this online encyclopedia.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets
Have you ever lost a paper due to file corruption or a hard drive crash the night before it was due? Don't have Microsoft Excel, but need to use a spreadsheet program? Need to collaborate with team members on a group project?
Consider using one of Google's newest offerings.
After buying up Internet startup Writely, Google merged it with its own Spreadsheets Web application and created "Google Docs & Spreadsheets."
You can now edit documents online and they'll be saved on Google's servers and accessible from anywhere. The program lets you upload ".doc" and ".xls" files and lets you export in a wide variety of formats.
And for a group project, nothing beats this interface. Multiple users can work on the same document simultaneously and chat about it in a box to the right of the editing area.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets uses your Google account, so if you use Gmail or Google Calendar, you can visit http://docs.google.com and sign in with your Google username and password. Otherwise can register for a free account.
mynoteIT
Do you find yourself looking up classmates on Facebook in order to ask for the notes from last class or next week's assignment?
Well, if you do, check out http://www.mynoteit.com.
This Web site combines social networking with academic organization for an unrivaled user experience.
You can post questions on a message board, take notes online or upload your notes to mynoteIT, access notes from your cellphone, schedule upcoming appointments on the built-in calendar, keep track of your grades and communicate with others who are taking the same course.
Of course, all of this can be done via spreadsheets, calendar applications and Word -- except for the social networking part. But check out mynoteIT and see if it's right for you.
LexisNexis
LexisNexis, available through the library's Web site, offers access to a bunch of academic articles, news stories, legal rulings, and more.
Check out the "online resources" tab at http://www.library.jhu.edu for this and other resources, free to Hopkins students.
And for the premed student, PubMed is also available from the same site, for free, offering archives of a variety of medical articles.
Google Scholar
Go to http://scholar.google.com to find scholarly articles using Google's fast, comprehensive search technology. http://scholar.google.com
They've recently added a new feature that is of particular use for Hopkins students. If you're searching from a campus Internet connection, all results will have a "FIND IT @ JHU" result, which will automatically search the Johns Hopkins Libraries for a copy of the work in question.
So for those of you who think Facebook is the only thing on the World Wide Web, know this -- you can actually get some work done or even gain some knowledge by using this thing they call the Internet.
