Our aim here is to investigate the WWW/Internet as a distance learning environment, i.e, its capability and potential as a groupware tool to deliver course material, promote and support collaboration and effective learning, furthermore, more than simply investigating if it replicates traditional face-to-face environments, if the use computers' and networks' power to actually enhance the teaching/learning process.
It is argued that the WWW has features which introduce a new dimension to the concept of distance learning as we understand it. Its hyper-media nature offers advantages, as well as the ones mentioned in section 4.1, which no other medium does. It is assumed that its underlying model is the most promising factor of the Web. The WWW is basically an open space, where one can navigate as one pleases, information from all over the globe is at reach, and all you need is an Internet connection and a public domain browser.
For the reasons given above and in previous sections, the WWW is currently being utilised by various Institutions to implement their distance education environment, with very little, if any at all, concern to the validity of these assumptions.