T here is increasing interest in the use of the World Wide Web for teaching purposes. Interest is increasing because, as Sheryl Burgstahler has noted, the web "provides new ways for us to teach and learn. It allows us to do new things, as well as to do traditional things in new ways" (1997, 63). Others, such as Peter Denning, associate dean for computing at George Mason University, have gone further, arguing that the rise of web-based teaching heralds the "demise of the university" (1996, 29), as information technology erodes the four traditional cornerstones of the university: