The Distance Education Clearinghouse site is a must stop for anyone interested in distance education. The first thing you notice when you visit this site, sponsored by the University of Wisconsin, is its straightforward arrangement. The web page begins with a title and minimal graphics for quick loading. On the bottom half of the page are eight bullet headings with titles like Overview of Distance Education, Quality Distance Education (QDE), and Interactive Delivery Systems. If you look closer on the first page, you will notice that it also includes a link to a comprehensive outline for the whole site and an alphabetical index to the contents of the web site. It is evident that considerable thought was put into this arrangement so that casual visitors can browse and find out about distance learning and educators searching for specific information on distance education can also find what they need quickly.
One of the gems that is included at the Clearinghouse site is a list of glossaries for distance education terminologies such as telecommunications, teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and Satellingo. These glossaries send you to other links which often give extensive definitions for the terminology listed. Under Funding Resources and Grants there are links to more than 20 corporate and nonprofit sites which could fund distance education projects. Other organized subject areas include extensive links to professional organizations and associations, models for distance education, and legislative updates in the field of distance learning. Almost all aspects of distance education are mentioned in this web site. The News, Programs and Courses sections of the site are written specifically for the University of Wisconsin and the state of Wisconsin, so these sections might not be as relevant to the general researcher but would definitely be of great value to a researcher from Wisconsin. Distance educators from other states would benefit from looking at a well organized site with general information as well as local information provided.
Many of the other distance education sites that I checked referred to the Clearinghouse site at one point or another as a link ‐ a pretty good indication that there is substantial information at this site which others find useful. Updating information for this site appears on the first page under the title. Over the several weeks that I had checked, this date was changed several times. On the front page there is a “What’s new?” section that can be clicked to see what is new on the site since last month and also over the past year. I found that very few of the links included in this document were inaccessible. This was not the case with several other distance education sites that I checked. This site appears to be frequently updated and well researched by its author. I would recommend that the Distance Education Clearinghouse site be put near the top of your bookmark list for distance education web resources.
