Editorial ~ CIDER is Born

With significant male trepidation, I want to share a birth story with IRRODL readers. This month, after a seemingly endless gestation, the Canadian Institute for Distance Education Research (CIDER) was born. Like most births, this new presence began with a blissful consummation, when I accepted the Canada Research Chair in Distance education at Athabasca University. After a very short honeymoon, a couple of miscarriages, and a few lover's spats that marked the relationship between the Center for Distance Education and myself, we struggled to determine the type of protégée we wanted to birth. The within the womb (in house) development of the visible image and website took shape, which like all gestations, was marked by some lower backache, punctuated by a few graphic images that turned out to be false labour.