Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

The development of the Internet has a long history of people underestimating the number of devices that it would, one day, need to support. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) was developed with, among other enhancements, enough addresses to meet the future needs of an ever-expanding Internet. With the recent exhaustion of the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address space, the rate of IPv6 adoption has begun to increase rapidly. At the same time, recent studies regarding the effectiveness of IPv6 communication, as compared to IPv4 communication, show that in some areas, IPv6 isn't providing services as effectively as IPv4. If IPv6 is to eventually replace IPv4, variables associated with IPv6 enablement and effectiveness must be identified and examined. Recent research into organizational IPv6 readiness offers to shed some light on the factors that may be related to IPv6 enablement and effectiveness. However, research into IPv6 readiness has, thus far, focused primarily on the private sector where it was found that IPv6 readiness is low. One exception is Internet Service Providers (ISP). These organizations must provide Internet connectivity to their customers, and that connectivity is increasingly requested over IPv6. Consequently, these organizations are adopting IPv6 at a much faster rate than other private sector organizations. Nestled between ISPs and the rest of the private sector are institutions of higher Education. Though Internet clients themselves, many institutions of higher Education, like ISPs, provide Internet connectivity as a service, making these institutions prime candidates for IPv6 readiness, enablement, and effectiveness research. This research examined the IPv6 readiness, enablement, and effectiveness of institutions of higher Education at 1,000 colleges and universities in the United States. A survey was used to determine the rate of IPv6 readiness and enablement, and an experiment was conducted to identify additional IPv6 enablement and to determine the IPv6 effectiveness of web services. The IPv6 readiness, enablement, and effectiveness model was adapted from the IPv6 adoption readiness model to theoretically explain the relationships between the institutional factors that were specifically identified in the literature as being related to IPv6 readiness and actual IPv6 readiness, IPv6 enablement, and IPv6 effectiveness in the higher Education sector. A statistical analysis of correlations between these variables was conducted in an effort to determine whether the institutional factors are statistically correlated with IPv6 readiness, enablement, and/or effectiveness for institutions of higher Education in the United States. The institutional factors were also examined to determine whether those factors can be used to predict IPv6 readiness, enablement, and/or effectiveness. Finally, based on the empirical evidence identified by this research, the IPv6 readiness and web enablement and effectiveness model is presented to explain the relationships between the distinctly-identified institutional factors that were found to be related to IPv6 readiness, IPv6 enablement, and IPv6 effectiveness.

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