Another way in which the Internet facilitates professional development is through opportunities for peer networking and information sharing.
 

• Professional organizations often provide these types of opportunities for their members through password-protected areas on their websites. 

• There are also a good number of professional listservs and newsgroups that allow you to "subscribe" (normally for free) to receive and make postings to your professional peers around the globe. 
• Many people who are new to the Internet find it confusing to understand the differences between "listservs" and "newsgroups". 
• The primary difference is that "listservs" send postings made by subscribers to all other subscribers on "the list" by using e-mail.  Subscribers wishing to ask their colleagues questions simply send an e-mail to a special e-mail address (the "listserv" address), and that message is then automatically copied and sent to all other subscribers. 
• Newsgroups, on the other hand, require that people wanting to post their questions do so through something that is similar to a "bulletin board".  People who are interested in the subject area can then check out the "newsgroup bulletin board" to view postings (this is often done through e-mail software now, but can also be done through your web browser). 

• Finally, a growing number of nutrition professionals also have their own websites.  These websites sometimes have areas to facilitate information sharing among their professional peers.  They also often have useful information about their specialty areas of dietetic practice. 

Opportunities for online learning are burgeoning on the Internet.  We will now look in more detail at this final way in which the Internet is increasingly able to meet our professional development needs.
 

Copyright 2000-2001, Nu Connexions

www.nuconnexions.com/Enhance/peers.htm
This page last updated August 13, 2001.