Teleworking: An Internet Seminar Linking the Present with the Future

In this paper we describe a pedagogic experiment, intended to support and encourage interactive group discussion among students from different universities in what we call Internet Seminars. In an Internet Seminar students and teachers from different universities cooperate via the Internet to research and discuss a common subject. In the case discussed here, the chosen subject, "Teleworking" was selected as one which would have particular resonance with the medium of the seminar, and also as being a topic which is not, as yet, part of the mainstream teaching curriculum. The aims of the seminar, however, were not only concerned with the subject material. We also hoped to encourage and help the students develop the transferable skills of project planning, research, team-working and communication, with the added stimulus of working in a multinational context. We describe the form of the seminar, report on its outcomes, and comment on the success and failures of our approach.