From the Editor’s Desk                                      

Welcome to the fourth issue!  This issue contains six papers representing education, finance, the arts and software, all written in an easy to read style you will find useful. 

·         Kadriye O. Lewis and Raymond C. Baker’s Physician Contribution to Developing an Online Master’s Degree in Education Program for Health Care Professionals chronicles the experiential development of an Online Masters degree in Education for healthcare professionals.  Kadriye and Raymond solicited insights from enrolled physicians to shape the program into an online course resulting in superior teaching and research capability.

·         Neelu Sinha’s Writing Across the Curriculum – An Online Course in Computer Security maps the entire design, management and benefits of a writing intensive course for computer science majors.  Neelu presents compelling arguments and solutions for writing across the curriculum reflecting a key challenge facing all educators.  Enjoy!

·         Victor C. X. Wang and Peter G. Kreysa’s Instructional Strategies of Distance Education Instructors in China describes a highly insightful investigation of the distance learning teaching strategies of Chinese educators.  Victor and Peter present a must-read paper answering the question “to what extent do Chinese distance education instructors utilize the Western format of education?”

·         Zhuoming “Joe” Peng’s Applying Internet-based Technologies to Teaching Corporate Finance and Investments offers a detailed survey study examining Finance student perceptions of internet technologies and their learning experience of online Finance courses.  Joe’s findings demonstrate the efficacy of hybrid courses for finance courses - easy to read, and easy to use.  

·         James Wohlpart, Craig Rademacher, Scott Karakas, Lisa Courcier and Charles Lindsey’s Online Education in the Visual and Performing Arts: Strategies for Increasing Learning and Reducing Costs details the issues and solutions to transform a required arts course into an online offer to improve student learning whilst reducing costs.  James, Craig, Scott, Lisa and Charles offer detail and balance that includes staffing, objective testing and short essays – a very well written paper.

·         Concetta A. DePaolo and Arthur Lloyd Sherwood’s Instructional Uses of Web-Based Survey Software examines how simple to use web-based survey software to substantively assist with the many course management tasks educators routinely face.  Concetta and Arthur demonstrate how the application of one such software (Web Forms) offers faculty the benefits of flexibility, re-use and time savings.  A hot topic.

The Journal of Educators Online (the JEO ) is published at www.thejeo.com in January and July of each year.  If you have a high quality paper you want considered for publication, please contact the editor, Matthew Elbeck at melbeck@troy.edu.  Committed to excellence, the JEO is disseminated online without charge as a high quality and useful resource for educators, students, administrators and policy makers in any and all disciplines.