The problem, of course, is that all of these potential advantages are largely unrealized, and that time, money, commitment and creativity are required to learn how to best use this technology in instruction, and to develop the materials that allow this use. Accomplishing this is intimately a part of changing the roles and responsibilities of faculty as described above. There is probably no greater challenge, or more important task, facing higher education today. The World Wide Web has many of the features of an electronic library, albeit not a very well organized one yet. This trend will continue.
Electronic publishing presents both problems and opportunities.
It is frustrating that many publishers offer journals in electronic form at a substantial premium over print. There was strong sentiment that universities should reclaim their property rights in intellectual property developed on campus. The only substantial barrier to this appears to be a lack of organization and will to proceed. Increased use of technology in research will be important, allow many new things to be done, and old things to be done better, but in the near future will have impacts that would be better described as incremental rather than revolutionary.