This primer consists of eight chapters, a glossary, 48 references, and an index. Chapter 1 gives an introduction and overview of distance education, including a summary of the international roots of distance education and the evolution of distance education in Alaska. Chapter 2 covers the factors enhancing effectiveness in distance education. Chapter 3 addresses the roles of students, faculty, facilitators, support staff, and administrators. Chapter 4 provides information on faculty development, explaining why it is important to distance education; how factors inhibiting faculty development can be overcome; what characteristics make inservice training effective; and why it is wise to pay special attention to promotion, tenure, and the academic legitimacy of distance education. Chapter 5 addresses how to adapt and develop distance-delivered instruction through the design, development, evaluation, and revision stages. Chapter 6 covers the selection of appropriate teaching tools and technology, including voice, video, data, and print tools. Chapter 7 summarizes strategies for teaching effectively at a distance, including meeting student needs, course planning and organization, teaching strategies, and interaction and feedback. Chapter 8 covers the future of distance education, including how to improve research on it, how to explore effective evaluation strategies, and how to develop a responsive academic policy. (CML)