The Internet has major implications for both education and educational research. According to John Dewey (1916), the form of experience that is most educative is participation in shared inquiry. The Internet "represents a dynamically evolving virtual world, with virtual communities forming all over the place, each composed of people with similar interests but diverse locations" (Cunningham, 1996). Most universities and schools of education are now connected to the World Wide Web. This paper presents an overview of the Internet as a tool for educational research, and explores some of the issues raised for the academic community of the move from traditional to information technology-assisted information skills, collaboration on research projects, materials available for research on the Internet, and the interchange of ideas within the new intellectual community that exists on the Internet. In order for technology to have a substantial impact on educational research, a number of issues need to be addressed: equitable access to Internet-connections, anywhere and anytime; universal access to computers needed to access the Internet; worthwhile, quality web-sites to explore; development of the necessary information retrieval skills among both faculty, staff, and research students; and an understanding of how the tools of the communication age can be used to build the future, and not simply reproduce the past. (Contains 30 references.) (Author/SWC)