First, the good news! Michel Umbriaco from Télé-Université-Québec has agreed to be the new French-language editor. Welcome Michel! He is taking over from France Henri, who has been with the Journal since the Spring 1995 issue. France, we deeply appreciate all your contributions to JDE, and we wish you much success in the future. The bad news is that although we have some French language articles in preparation, we were unable to include them in this issue due to time constraints. Michel has assured me that we will not have to face this unfortunate situation again.
The articles in this issue examine a variety of different topics in our field and from different research perspectives. In the For Your Information section I have included a fictional case study on consortia development. I am sure that you will find much in it to argue about, for its purpose is to stimulate discussion about distance education issues around transnational globalization, an increasingly important aspect of our world.
I would like to thank all reviewers for their contributions to this volume of JDE. Their names are listed following the Contents.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to announce that most of the back issues of JDE are available via our Web site thanks to the generous support of Allan Davis and his staff at Athabasca University. We hope this service will help you find previous articles and expand the readership for JDE.
Margaret Haughey