Integrated Professional Skills in the Digital Age: Essay and Report

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INTEGRATED PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
IN THE DIGITAL AGE
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Contents
ASSESSMENT 1- ESSAY..........................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................................3
BODY.....................................................................................................................................................4
INTERNET.........................................................................................................................................4
IMPACT OF INTERNET ON STUDENTS........................................................................................4
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF INTERNET TO STUDENTS......................................5
CHALLENGES AND MEASURES TO BE TAKEN FOR SECURITY AND PRIVACY OF
STUDENTS WHILE USING INTERNET..........................................................................................6
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................................8
ASSESSMENT 2- REPORT.......................................................................................................................9
INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................................9
BODY...................................................................................................................................................10
EMAIL PROVIDERS.......................................................................................................................10
SIMILARITIES BETWEEN GMAIL AND ZOHO MAIL...............................................................10
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GMAIL AND ZOHO MAIL.................................................................10
APPLICATIONS OF GMAIL:..........................................................................................................11
APPLICATIONS OF ZOHO MAIL..................................................................................................12
SUITABILITY OF GMAIL IN BUSINESSES.................................................................................12
SUITABILITY OF ZOHO MAIL IN BUSINESSES........................................................................12
SKILLS NEEDED TO EVALUATE RESOURCES ONLINE.........................................................13
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................16
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ASSESSMENT 1- ESSAY
INTRODUCTION
The Internet plays a very vital role in the lives of people in today's world. The Internet provides
information and knowledge about each and every topic to its users worldwide. Internet is a
system of various interconnected networks running globally. The Internet provides a number of
services for its mobile users like file sharing, sending and receiving electronic mails, access to
social media apps, playing online games, etc. These facilities have increased the usage of the
internet to the next level among its users. The following assignment would be explaining the
impact of the internet on university students with reference to students of the London School of
Commerce. The negative and positive aspects of internet users would be discussed in the form of
essay. The challenges that are faced and measures are taken to use the internet safely considering
privacy are elaborated in the second part of the essay.
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BODY
INTERNET
In the 21st century, the internet plays a significant role in everyone's life. Internet is very useful in
education as it is a powerful tool that provides knowledge and information to students and
teachers which makes and the whole education system. The Internet has become a part of the
education system over the last few decades (Hewson et al. 2015). Many forms of e-learning like
online courses, virtual classrooms, online schools, etc. have been into practice since the 1990s.
The use of the internet is very common among students and even professional for learning online
through different mediums like Coursera, Khan Academy, YouTube EDU, etc. as different
courses are available here and it allows access to everyone all over the world.
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IMPACT OF INTERNET ON STUDENTS
According to Kuss and Lopez-Fernandez (2016), the Internet has a great impact on the life of
students both academically and socially. The access use of the internet affects the grades of
students badly. The right amount of internet access can help them in gaining skills and
knowledge, learning various concepts, getting new ideas and solutions to their academic
problems and improving their performance and results (Hamid et al. 2015). Internet is mostly used
by students in chatting, using social media applications like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to
make new friends, talk to people etc. which leads to wastage of their precious time. Many
students do multi-tasking by doing homework along with using social media sites which act as a
major distraction and also using the internet excessively becomes an addiction for students which
lead to lower grades. Nowadays, a lot of time of students is consumed by playing games online
(Hewson et al. 2015). There are many games which become a bad addiction for the people
including students and they waste a lot of time playing these games. The students of the London
School of Commerce are also impacted by the excess usage of internet in today's education
system. The campus has free Wi-Fi connection for all its students to have unlimited access to the
internet (Kuss and Lopez-Fernandez, 2016). The students may use the internet for learning and
searching needed information and also they can have access to the internet for watching
YouTube, communicating to friends via social media, playing games, etc. depending on the
interest of an individual(Hewson et al. 2015). Access to the internet can have both positive and
negative effects on the performance of the students.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF INTERNET TO STUDENTS
PROS OF USING INTERNET:
Internet is a very useful source for students of London University of Commerce for learning,
seeking knowledge and information for conducting researches, making project reports and
assignments (Hamid et al. 2015).
The students, especially the ones who live in hostels can make use of internet in talking to their
parents through emails, social media apps, communicating face to face through video calling app
like Skype whenever they feel homesick which act as a stress buster for the students.
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Internet helps in the exchange of ideas and information between students and professionals to
provide resources and other tools through Gmail for conducting researches and making projects.
Students can make good use of the internet by applying for various courses of their interest as
there are many online courses options available which help them in increasing their knowledge
and also receiving degree or certificate for the same.
The students can get access to millions of books, magazines, journals and other study material
which they can use for better academic performance (Hamid et al. 2015).
CONS OF USING INTERNET:
The university students, that is, young generation get easily attracted towards online games and
they use the internet for playing the game online and wasting their valuable time by getting
addicted to these games (Parasuraman et al. 2017).
The students can make wrong use of internet under peer pressure by watching porn videos which
result in corrupting their mind.
The students waste a lot of time on the internet using social media applications for making new
friends, sharing their pictures online to get compliments from people they may/ may not know.
They ignore people sitting in front of them, their friends and family members when they are busy
in communicating to people online or using these social networking sites for different purposes
(Ndasauka et al. 2016).
Students or young population is engaged in surfing online websites for shopping products online.
They waste a huge amount of time in scrolling through different applications like Amazon, Asos,
etc. and most of the time they end up not even purchasing anything.
The biggest demerit of excess use of internet in the 21st century is the increasing problem of
fraudulence and criminal cases where the personal information provided by the users like
university students etc. on different online portals and social network is hacked and misused
badly by criminals (Ndasauka et al. 2016).
Thus, the internet must be used by students considering its positive effects, but to a limit. The
excessive use of the internet in today's world distracts the students from focusing on their career
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and affects their studies. The use of the internet in the wrong direction can lead to many
problems like failing their exams or tests and badly affecting the academic performance of
university students (Parasuraman et al. 2017).
CHALLENGES AND MEASURES TO BE TAKEN FOR SECURITY AND
PRIVACY OF STUDENTS WHILE USING INTERNET
There are many online frauds happening in today’s world. While using the internet, one should
take care of their personal information by securing it by undertaking appropriate measures to
avoid the occurrence of any fraud. Universities take many measures to protect the data of
students, but students must also take responsibility for their own safety. Securing individual
information is a challenging task and it must include the following:
One must have up to date security systems which involve updated software, applications and
antivirus to protect personal computer and mobile phone from threats of getting corrupted (Jones
and Chin, 2015).
While using any public computer or computer in any cyber café, one must not save the password
or the email address on the website being visited by the individual. One must also log out from
all his accounts and delete all the information saved or downloaded in that computer before
leaving the device.
The password of email or any social media application must not be shared with anyone, and all
the different password of different sites must be kept safe in a diary that should be kept at a place
where no one could reach except the individual. All the passwords should be immediately
changed in case of a data breach in campus servers (Jones and Chin, 2015).
Search engine: Various search engines track the search history of an individual and serve
personalized results depending on individuals past searches. This situation can be avoided by
using another search engine like DuckDuckGo, that doesn’t track inquiries of people and provide
effective services.
Social networking: While using sites like Facebook, Instagram, etc. one must take care of his
own privacy and security by not providing personal information like date of birth, location,
family details, etc. the password must be difficult, and unique for different apps like email,
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networking apps, etc. and should be changed on regular basis so to prevent the account from
getting hacked.
Cybersecurity education: One must be aware of the different internet safety resources and
groups like Stay Safe Online.org and Stop, Think Connect, cyber civil rights, etc. to protect
oneself at the time of any cyber bullying or fraud by using the internet (Jones and Chin, 2015).
Thus, there are many kinds of online fraud happening to students because of the increase in the
number of hackers in the country. The students must make sure that all their data is password
protected and they must take adequate measures for securing and protecting the valuable data
from getting lost or hacked.
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CONCLUSION
With the help of this essay, it can be concluded that university students have great access to the
internet in the 21st century. All the projects and assignments and study material are provided to
students through email. The excess usage of the internet for learning and gaining knowledge is
good, but students also use the internet for other activities like playing games, making friends on
social media, online shopping, etc. (Ndasauka et al. 2016) which act as a distraction for the
students and have a negative effect on their result. In today's world, there are many kinds of
cybercrimes and frauds taking place where hackers misuse the information provided by people
on the internet. Thus this essay discusses the measures one can take to protect and secure oneself
from these online frauds (Jones and Chin, 2015).
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ASSESSMENT 2- REPORT
INTRODUCTION
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a term that includes the products like
computers, digital TV, robots, emails, etc. which help the users to store, access, manipulate,
transmit and share information electronically and digitally. ICT has gained importance in the last
two decades among users as it helps in sharing information worldwide. Every business uses the
internet daily for all its purposes. The Internet has become a crucial part in everyone's life as it
helps in providing information about anything and everything, sharing information,
communicating with other people all over the world easily without having to meet them
physically. Communication has been a significant part of every business for its efficient working.
Sharing information and communicating within an enterprise can be done with the help of
different email providers like Gmail, Zoho mail, Outlook.com, Yahoo, etc. two of which would
be discussed in this report. The report will also include the skills that are needed to conduct
researches online.
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BODY
EMAIL PROVIDERS
GMAIL: Gmail is one of the best email provider used worldwide by one billion active users and
it was developed by Google. It is simple and easy to understand. It can be accessed via personal
computer and mobile phones (Vijayan et al. 2015). It is used for chatting, video calls, sharing
attachments, etc. Individuals and businesses are provided with an option of creating an account
in Gmail and manage their customized email.
ZOHO MAIL: Zoho mail is an excellent online service provider which includes document
collaboration, presentations, spreadsheets, instant messaging, business calendar, notes,
bookmarks, sharing information and attachments etc. and it was developed by ZOHO
Corporation (Vijayan et al. 2019). It provides free email service to its users since 2008 for sending
and receiving messages on a daily basis. It has 30GB storage per user per month.
SIMILARITIES BETWEEN GMAIL AND ZOHO MAIL
Both, Gmail and Zoho mail are the most widely used email providers which consist of so many
similar features like instant messaging, sharing attachments and supporting web browsers like
Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. Both the email services don't provide any
guarantee or warranty to users (Dias et al 2017).
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GMAIL AND ZOHO MAIL
 FEATURES: Gmail provides various features like tabbed inboxes, spam filtering
feature, conversation threading, 15GB storage space, virus scanner, search bar, Gmail
labels, 50MB per email capacity, instant messaging and video chats, Google hangouts,
advertising and language support, money transfer and payment services, Google Wallet,
etc. (Topatan et al. 2019) On the other hand, Zoho mail includes advanced features like
anywhere access, migration and integration, calendars and tasks, online office, control
panel, email and customer relationship management, powerful search, unlimited groups,
instant chats, multiple accounts, folders and labels, etc. (Dias et al 2017).
 PRICING: Gmail provides different pricing plans for companies, businesses, enterprise
and teams. The plans for businesses include $10 per user per month and unlimited cloud
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storage, video and voice conferencing, 24/7 support services, security, etc. contrarily,
Zoho workplace charges affordable prices for its users as it gives free startup for
business having less than 25 users. It includes $6 per user if billed monthly and $5 per
user if billed annually, 100GB storage, 40MB attachment limit, etc.
 LANGUAGE SUPPORTED: Gmail supports various languages which include English,
Turkish, Dutch, Polish and Swedish. But, Zoho mail supports only English.
 PROMINENT CLIENTS: Coca Cola, HTC and Spotify are the fore standing clients of
Gmail. Zoho mail doesn’t have any such prominent clients (Dias et al 2017).
 AVAILABLE DEVICES: Gmail can be available on Windows, Linux, Android,
iPhone, Mac, windows mobile and Web-based. Zoho mail is also available on all these
devices except windows, Linux and windows mobile.
 RELIABILITY: Gmail is the most reliable tool used by businesses and it is more
powerful than Zoho mail. On the other hand, Zoho mail is not much reliable choice for
businesses when compared to Gmail (Shabdar, 2017).
 EFFICIENCY: Gmail is a cloud-based service provider and it maintains important user
data in the mailbox and also secures data efficiently. Whereas, Zoho mail is very simple,
new, fats and more efficient data interface service provider offering many services like
email, word processing, spreadsheets, chatting, wiki, presentations, and much more.
 SPAM FILTERING: Gmail provides great service by blocking spam before it gets into
the user's inbox and also it gives an option of reporting unwanted messages or spams.
Thus, Gmail provides awesome spam filtering services as compared to Zoho mail
(Shabdar, 2017).
APPLICATIONS OF GMAIL:
Other than sending and receiving messages, Gmail is also used for different purposes which are:
Taking notes, jotting down any thoughts, ideas or to do lists temporarily.
The attachments can be saved automatically to Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive (Topatan et
al. 2019).
All social media apps like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can be updated at once by using
Gmail.
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