PCF2 // The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has been providing training support to distance education practitioners for several years. A key focus of its work has been to support policy makers who are required to consider effective policy environments for distance education. While facilitating face-to-face workshops has immense value, there is a growing view that using technology can offer a range of added value to professional development activities. It is with this in mind that COL established a project that developed such a course using the Internet (or CD-ROM where connectivity was a problem). A further consideration is to test the use of such technology within the Southern African region, noting its developing world status and the immense need for professional development amongst its people. // Working with members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Technical Committee for Distance Education, COL focused on providing an online educational experience for policy makers in Southern Africa. This was to be complemented by a five-day face-to-face training session, which aimed to ensure that the best of educational strategies was combined in creating a training course for distance education policy makers. // COL commissioned the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) to develop and implement the online course that lasted four months. During this period, COL commissioned an evaluation to be conducted during and after the course. This paper outlines the experience of implementing this course, and lessons learned from it. //