In April of 1997, Serf's author Fred Hofstetter was invited to moderate a PBS satellite videoconference on the topic of World Wide Web Learning Models. The videoconference generated a lot of interest and set an all-time record attendance for PBS. After this event, PBS challenged Fred to create a Web-based offering of his newly completed course and textbook, Internet Literacy.  At the time, there was no way to host such a course on the Web, so a new environment needed to be created. The answer was Serf.

As the first PBS TeleWEBcourse™, Internet Literacy went on to win the 1999 Credit Course of the Year award from the National Continuing Education Association.  A sequel entitled Multimedia Literacy was released in 2001.