A story in small lessons magnified: the creation of an online campus

Purpose - This paper aims to outline the beginnings of online education.Design methodology approach - This article is a narrative account by an "early adapter" of her initiation into online learning, at a time when few people could even conceive the potentialities of the mode and nobody could clearly envision them.Findings - This article reveals a side to the endeavor that is usually edited out of more formal histories, which focus primarily on major discoveries - the untidy process of coming to terms with new possibilities in the course of daily life, while struggling with both incomprehension of one's peers and personal uncertainties of one's own.Originality value - The article illustrates how innovation is driven not simply by pragmatic needs as much as by the lure of the unknown.