Patricia Lupion Torres has been a professor at PUCPR (Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Parana/Brazil) since 1982. She was head of the education department from 1994 to 1998 and again from 2003 to 2005. She was the coordinator of research and assessment of the distance learning department from 2002 to 2003. She was also a lecturer at UFSC (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina/Brazil) on the media and knowledge master's course from 1999 to 2002. A pedagogue, she is a specialist in psycho-pedagogy and in sociological theories and has a master's degree in education from PUCPR. She took her doctorate on media and knowledge at UFSC. She was on the board of directors of PUCWEB from 2003 to 2005. She manages projects on the use of virtual learning environments for distance learning in higher education, teaches the master's and doctorate in education courses at PUCPR, and is the director of distance learning at the same institution. Rita de Cassia Veiga Marriot (BA, MED) is a member of the academic staff in the Department of Hispanic Studies and at the Centre for Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham (UK) where she is a Portuguese language tutor. She has lectured at the Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Parana (PUCPR) and at Universidade Federal do Parana (UFPR) in Brazil in subjects including EFL, ESP, collaborative learning online, translation studies, new technologies in education in the Department of Languages and the Department of Education at graduate and postgraduate levels, and has also given teacher training courses related to computer assisted language learning at CELIN (UFPR's Language Centre). She is currently a doctoral student in e-learning and language acquisition in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham (UK).