"Distance learning," says UC Davis biology professor Rick Falk, is what happens to students sitting beyond the third row in a large lecture hall. On the other hand, his online Biology 10 class provides a front-row experience for each and every student, Falk says. Working through the Web and e-mail interactions, his 200 students create one-on-one relationships with him, the teaching assistants and fellow classmates. Just as important, because the students are induced by the class structure to be active learners, they get more out of it than if they were sitting beyond that third row, anonymously scribbling notes. That is the hypothesis that Falk, a teacher for 32 years, and a group of Web-savvy professors are testing in 10 courses with the help of a $500,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Biochemistry professor Harry Matthews, who is principal investigator for the grant, says it will allow UC Davis to discover whether Web-based classes are a key to educating the Tidal Wave II students over the next decade. It should also answer whether online instruction is more cost-effective than constructing new classroom buildings or -- as a third alternative -- doing neither and having students take a longer time to graduate.