Discussion groups are an invaluable tool in distance learning and this book is a really useful guide to planning, implementing and managing them. If you follow the steps she outlines, it's hard to see how you could go wrong. If you're doing discussion groups - get it!

If you are a e-teaching or you are in the e-learning business, you must buy and read this book. This book explain the e-teaching work, how to moderate a online class without lose the control, how to train and monitoring a e-moderator,... talk about the important things in the success of the work of a e-teacher/e-moderator. I found this book very informative, I recomend it!.

Although this book is aimed at those teaching/facilitating in a distance learning setting, Salmon's advice and approaches are sound and right on target. The last third of the ook, "resources for e-moderators," is terrific for many online facilitation settings beyond distance ed, especially distance teams/workgroups, communities of practice etc. Some may find them a bit conservative for more free-wheeling social spaces and virtual communities. But her advice rings very true to me.

I particularly enjoyed the case studies and examples sprinkled throughout the book. I found myself nodding, taking notes and putting stickies in the book - a sign that this is a book I can come back to and use again and again. I plan to reference it in my next online facilitation course!

Nancy White