The purpose of this symposium on research in distance education was to continue the process of building the network of scholars and climate of cooperation and communication necessary for further development of distance education and to provide an opportunity for discussion. Four main areas of focus for the symposium were learning and characteristics of learners; course design and communication; instruction and learner support; and theory, policy, and management. There are eight papers in this collection: "Conative Capacity and Attention Control Implications for Distance Education" (Kathryn S. Atman); "Boundary Articulation, Domain Determination, and Organizational Learning in Distance Education: Practice Opportunities and Research Needs" (Joe F. Donaldson); "Collaborative Learning and Group Dynamics in Computer-Mediated Communication Networks" (Charlotte N. Gunawardena); "Identifying Performance Improvement Prescriptions for Distance Learning and Teaching: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches" (M. Winston Egan, Joan Sebastian, Marshall Welch, and Brent Page); "Designing Policy Tools for the Third Generation of Distance Education" (Gary E. Miller); "Research-Based Approaches to Dealing with Student Attrition: Experiences at the American College" (John W. Bajtelsmit); "Synergistic Model for Statewide Telecommunications Success" (Robert B. Leiter); and "Theory of Distance Education" (Michael G. Moore). Most of the papers contain references. (JLB)