Introducing a distance learning version of a postgraduate program on networking in Argentina

The great popularity of the Internet and the widespread use of the World Wide Web are promoting a new methodology for distance learning. This methodology takes advantage of several different Internet services and applications mostly for the student support (as a mean of exchanging information with the professor) and to promote collaborative learning regardless of the time and distance among the students. This paper describes the introduction of Internet tools (such as WWW, e-mail, IRC, FTP, mailing list) in the distance learning postgraduate program of the "Magister de Redes" (http://www.linti.unlp.edu.ar/master) of the National University of La Plata. The ongoing experience was successful due to certain facts that are stated in the paper which also mentions some drawbacks and the strategy for overcoming them. The curricula of this postgraduate program was proposed, in 1995, to upgrade the knowledge of IT professionals both from the engineering and the computer science field in the networking area.