Teaching Negotiation Theory and Skills Over the Internet

Negotiating on-line is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon in the workplace. The medium of the Internet also offers promising, opportunities for negotiation educators to reach out to participants that might otherwise be unable to attend a seminar. The authors used the Internet to teach negotiation theory and skills during a seven-week seminar that was conducted completely over the World Wide Web. This experiment revealed several advantages and difficulties likely to arise in the conduct of “distance learning” for topics in negotiation. The authors reflect on how they would organize the seminar differently, should they do it again, and offer suggestions for others organizing courses using the Internet.