The Internet is a global network, connecting many smaller individual networks. For example, the computer you're working on is connected to another computer on campus. All the departments on campus are then connected to a larger network in the province. The Alberta network is connected to regional, national and international networks.

The Internet is also a set of "protocols" that allow you to communicate with people, move files between computers, and find and share information. The protocols you are likely to use are:

• e-mail for communicating with people across the Internet
• http (hypertext transfer protocol) for making Web pages accessible
• ftp (file transfer protocol) for transferring files from one computer to another across the Internet

The World Wide Web is one part of the Internet, a world-wide computer network. The Web is made up of information published by many different groups, and the information you find is as varied as the people who put it there.