The Finnish Virtual University funded a research which focused on the requirements that network-based teaching has brought about for university teachers. A research project was established in the end of 2002. My task was to interview 13 teachers at different universities in the metropolitan area of Helsinki. In following I will report the competence areas which emerged from the data.Managing change and coping with new media According to the interviewees, it is not only question of different kinds of skills when the implementation of educational technology regarded. It may be that even more significant is the attitude towards change in general. Here we are dealing with a wider professional approach towards teachers work with the common requirement of continuing change in working life. Reacting to the surrounding realityThe previous category dealt with teacher's eagerness to develop themselves as teachers. The present category looks at the implementation of educational technology from an opposite perspective. It is not question if a teacher is eager to use technology but the world we live in necessitates it. The mega-trends which are going on, including information society, globalisation, networking, technological development, affect the work and pedagogy of a university teacher.Being presentThe question of presence was experienced as a difficult pedagogical issue in network- based education. What is teaching or studying in a network? How does action, in general, appear in network- based environments? Teachers wondered how could they be to be present in the Net in the way that could be recognised as teaching. Managing mediated timeIt became apparent that university teachers are not yet used to manage the freedom that network-based working provides. The interviewees sensed that they have done too much work for their network-based courses, compared to traditional courses, and they had worked at inconvenient times like late Sunday nights. The role of educatorThis competence area was somewhat surprising. When a child goes to school at the first class the teacher must introduce what a school is all about and how to behave. The university teachers felt that their work as a 'net-teacher' resembles that of the first class teacher. The network- based environment is new for most of students and it is teacher's duty to introduce it for them. It was more like educating and less like teaching than in the traditional university teaching.Knowledge and the NetThe interviewees argued that in today's world a university teacher must be able to manage the basic knowledge of his or her discipline that is to be found in the Internet. The teachers also regarded that students are more capable than before, thanks to the Internet, to find knowledge independently. The relationship between student and knowledge is more direct than in earlier days. An opposite view was expressed as well. The interviewed teachers were worried about students' ability to critically judge the knowledge (or information or rubbish) that they will find in the Net. The role of teacher becomes even more important than before and the relationship between student and knowledge may become less direct. Media choiceDisciplines are different of their characteristics, courses differ in regard of their aims, network-based course can be either fully in the Net or they can be used beside of face-to-face teaching, adult learners are distinct from younger students. These points are examples how a variety of factors affect the use of information and communication technologies. The interviewees regarded that a teacher should have, at least to some extent, a general picture what kind of media there are and how they serve the purpose of a particular course.