For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. Aristotle Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty. Albert Einstein The second most important job in the world, second only to being a good parent, is being a good teacher. S.G. Ellis The fast technological changes and the resulting shifts of market conditions require the development and use of educational methodologies and opportunities with moderate economic demands. Currently, there is an increasing number of edu- tional institutes that respond to this challenge through the creation and adoption of distance education programs in which the teachers and students are separated by physical distance. It has been verified in many cases that, with the proper methods and tools, teaching and learning at a distance can be as effective as traditional fa- to-face instruction. Today, distance education is primarily performed through the Internet, which is the biggest and most powerful computer network of the World, and the World Wide Web (WWW), which is an effective front-end to the Internet and allows the Internet users to uniformly access a large repertory of resources (text, data, images, sound, video, etc.) available on the Internet.
Spyros G. Tzafestas received his B.Sc. in Physics (1963) and Graduate Diploma in Electronics (1965) from Athens University, Diploma of Electrical Engineering, from Imperial College (1967), M.Sc. (Eng.) in Control from London University (1967) and Ph.D. in Systems and Control from Southampton University, England (1969). From 1969 to 1973 he was Research Leader at the Computer Science Division of the Nuclear Research Center "Demokritos", Athens. From 1973 to 1984 he was Professor of Automatic Control at the University of Patras, and from 1985 to 2006 he was Professor of Control and Robotics at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. Temporary visiting teaching and / or research positions include : University of Calabria, Italy (1985, 1987), University of Delft, The Netherlands (1991) and MIT, USA (1992). He is currently Director of the Institute of Communication and Control Systems, and as a Professor Emeritus he is leading the Intelligent Automation Systems Research Group engaged with research carried out in ICCS-NTUA mainly in the framework of national and European projects.
Dr Tzafestas is the Recipient of D.Sc. of Southampton University (1978), and Honorary Doctorates of the Technical University of Munich (Dr.-Ing. E.h., 1997) and the Ecole Centrale de Lille (Dr. Ing.-Honoris Causa, 2003). He has published 30 edited research books, 60 book chapters and over 700 Journal and Conference technical papers in the field of control, robotics and Intelligent Systems. He has been the coordinator of national and EU projects in the fields of IT, Intelligent systems, robotics, control and CIM. He is an associate editor of 15 Journals, and he was the Editor – in – Chief of the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems (1988-2006) and of the Book Series "Micro processor – Based and Intelligent Systems Engineering, Kluwer (1993-2006). Presently, he is the Editor of the Springer book series on Intelligent Control and Automation Systems.
He is a Fellow of IEE, now IET (London), a Life Fellow of IEEE (New York) and a Member of ASME, NYAS and the Hellenic Technical Chamber (TEE). He received the Greek Society of Writers’ Award and the Ktesibios Award from the IEEE Mediterranean Control Association (2001). Dr Tzafestas has over the years organized and / or chaired several international conferences (IEEE, IMACS, SIRES, IASTED, EUCA).
