UPFRONT -What makes distance education programs effective? During the next five
issues you'll be hearing from five instructors who would like to share their perspectives on
that question. Their stories come from the areas of higher education, government, business,
and K-12. In their FOCUS articles they will share information about their - courses and
programs, rationale for creating them, design process, delivery method, concerns and
mistakes, and lessons learned. Several of the authors focus on one particular technology,
others use a blended approach, incorporating several technologies where appropriate.

Whatever your area of interest - administration, instruction, instructional design, technical
support, or end-user, I think you will find that these stories add a valuable perspective to
your concept of effective distance education. The first story is by Molly Immendorf, a
Cooperative Extension technology training specialist who, among other things, teaches
Web authoring training via the World Wide Web. (Rosemary Lehman)