Cynthia Whitesel likens the future of distance education to a "brave new world" in which teachers will have to work every bit as hard as students to excel in Internet-based learning environments. Whitesel asks crucial questions, including the following: Can instructors keep up with changing technologies and opportunities? How can they adapt what works in the classroom to cyberspace? How can they continue to make teaching interactive, dynamic, and vital? Her answers will motivate all instructors to start preparing for the future now.

Linda K. Enghagen addresses copyright law and its application to the Internet. "The speed, ease, and low cost of downloading materials [from the Internet] readily obscures the possible illegality of doing so," she contends. "Nevertheless, technical capacity and legality are not the same thing." For those who cannot make sense of the technical language of the law, Enghagen explains what constitutes copyright infringement, what it can cost an offender, and how to avoid it. Moreover, she argues that educators should obey copyright law not because violating it can be costly, but because compliance sets a good example of intellectual honesty for students.

Enemies reportedly condemned Socrates, the fourth-century intellectual, for being "a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven." Today, one program named for the famed philosopher helps students develop unbounded curiosity?on the Internet. As Paul Shrivastava reports, The Socrates Program assists educators who want to enhance the old-fashioned search for knowledge with newly developed technology tools. Program developers target three types of higher education instructors: those who are Web beginners, those who are Web-savvy, and those who are interested in team teaching on the Web. Decide which category you belong in, and find out from Shrivastava how The Socrates Program can benefit you, your students, and your institution.

Dr. Terry O'Banion, author of A Learning College for the 21st Century, contends that "every social invention in the world . . . is using the new millennium to forecast a new start, and education is no exception." He predicts that the educational institution of the future will be the "learning college," which will foreground learning—rather than research, teaching, or service—as its mission and core value. In this new environment, faculty members will no longer face pressure to be "magician[s] who perform miracles with 30 students in 55 minutes three times a week." Instead, they will be free to teach specific competencies to genuinely interested learners. O'Banion elaborates on the forces behind educational reform and what impact reform will have on faculty and students alike in the coming century.

In March 1997, East Carolina University (ECU) became the first educational institution in the nation to implement Microsoft Exchange on an enterprise-wide basis. Ernest Marshburn and Richard Brown report that University administrators hoped that the program would allow faculty, staff and students to communicate not only with each other, but also with intellectuals across the global Internet. Find out how Exchange satisfied some of their expectations and frustrated others.

The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) Clearinghouse on Higher Education provides administrators, instructors, and students with a wealth of information on issues related to postsecondary education. The site features Web-based access to ERIC reports and education digests, to Critical Issue Bibliography (CRIB) Sheets, and to archived book reviews. Check out this clearinghouse, only one of fifteen sponsored by ERIC, and discover for yourself why the Center is one of the most respected educational resources in the world.