Y. Regina Chang, University of Missouri-Columbia
Development of the World Wide Web has increased the popularity and use of the Internet. To financial practitioners and educators, the Web offers promise of a means of effectively advising and educating clients. But, the "pitfalls" associated with the Web have drawn much attention from government, consumer educators, and others concerned with consumer protection issues.
The Web offers potential for efficient use of resources (time and money) and up-to-date teaching tools and information. However, given an overwhelming selection of sites and an increasing number of advertisements on the WWW, finding relevant information can be very resource intensive and frustrating. Also, users may not have adequate skills or background to process, utilize, and adequately assess quality and usefulness of information available on the Web. The purpose of this forum is to share experiences and stimulate discussion on various positive and negative aspects of the Web for personal financial planning.
Three presentations are included in this forum, each focusing on use of the Web for personal financial planning. First, a report of college students' experience and reactions to using the Web in searching for, and evaluating, sites related to personal financial planning is discussed. Second, potential pitfalls of the Web are explored. Teaching students skepticism about deceptive claims on the Web and other media are discussed. Effective means of locating and structuring personal financial information on the Web are examined. The last paper presents an overall survey and evaluation of sites related to the personal financial planning area.