Noemí Mendoza
The purpose
of this inquiry was to examine the consequences and concerns with
the diffusion of Internet2 at Texas A&M University (TAMU). This
dissertation reviewed the Internet development and its relationship
to universities. There were two theoretical models of change used,
Diffusion of Innovations and Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM).
Specifically, “the consequences of change” was the focus
in the Diffusion model, and “the stages of concern” was
the focus in CBAM.
This study
used qualitative methods of inquiry with three sources of information
--interviews, observations and archival information (printed and online).
Seventeen participants were interviewed during the spring of 2006,
selected on the basis of convenience, homogeneous, and snowball sampling.
The participants were placed in an area, or an intersection of areas,
of a diagram with teaching, research, and support-services realms.
Through
qualitative analytic induction, emerged twenty categories arranged
in five different themes: (1) Texas A&M’s use of Internet2,
(2) the dilemma of the information sharing, (3) the influences of
Internet2, (4) Internet2 discussion, (5) Internet2 concerns. Internet2’s
creation and Texas A&M University’s adoption rationale emerged
through the narrative analysis. This study matched partially the frameworks
of Rogers and Hall and Hord because a pre-stage of unawareness was
necessary to install since Internet2 resulted to be extensively used
at Texas A&M University, but with most of the users not aware
of it.
The audit
trail, peer-debriefing, and member checks were the mechanisms installed
to guarantee trustworthiness. Qualitative analytic induction and narrative
analysis were the research strategies and the report was presented
in the manner of a case study and summary of findings.