Toward a virtual cooperative training program in food engineering

Modern sources of information and the development of communication technologies have opened a vast field of possibilities to training activities, including education in food engineering. Availability of syllabus and courses programs found in World Wide Web (WWW) sites, and the possibility of incorporating interactive multimedia and virtual reality capacities in teaching processes, are the basis for the design of long-distance, high-level education of strong social impact. Different approaches to the organization and use of these tools are already being applied in the educational systems of various countries. This chapter presents a number of syllabi for food engineering found on the WWW, as well as recent developments by groups working along the same approach, including those of an interactive and virtual reality nature in which the use of computing programs is stressed. A training program in food engineering is proposed based on a solid and novel application of computational tools, bringing together skills of groups in different countries that show capacities not only on the food engineering field, but also in the application of informational platforms and technologies to education.