MOOC: New Internet course on international learning platform openHPI

POTSDAM, GERMANY: A comprehensive look at the complex world of Internet technology is given in the free online course offered by German Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), starting Monday, March 31, at its international learning platform.

Institute director, Prof. Christoph Meinel will be instructing the course in English on the technical foundations of the "network of networks." The six-week massive open online course, entitled "Introduction to Internetworking with TCP/IP", is open to everyone, with free registration at https://openhpi.de/course/internetworking2014. The technology and design of openHPI has been further improved to coincide with the start of the course.

Meinel describes the intention of the online course as a learning experience that is open to all: "Anyone who uses the Internet daily to order goods, read the news, or send e-mails should have the opportunity to understand the necessary technologies that make all of this possible."

The German computer science professor will make areas accessible to participants such as the foundation of digital data transfer, and the principles of how local networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs) work. A further focal point of the course is the "heart" of the Internet: the TCP/IP reference model and the Internet protocols, as well as applications such as e-mail and audio/video communication.