Inter-American distance education consortium

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The inter-American distance education consortium (Consorcio-red de educación a distancia, CREAD) is an inter-American non-profit distance education consortium, based at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in South Florida, US. It was founded in 1990 at the International Council for Distance Education World Conference in Caracas, Venezuela. At the beginning it was financed and supported by three agencies: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Organization of American States (OAS), and the InterAmerican Organization for Higher Education (IOHE). In 1994 CREAD became self-independent consortium located in Nova Southeastern University.

Their "vision" is to be the premier consortium for distance education for North, Central and South America, and to provide opportunities for improving educational quality, sharing information and finding greater strength through institutional cooperation.

Their "mission" is to assist in the improvement of distance education in the Americas and to develop projects related to educational uses of technology. CREAD is a non-profit organization offering information services, human resource training, technical cooperation, access to courses and other products.

Their main goals are to:

• Disseminate information about current developments in distance education.
• Hold inter-American conferences and other conferences, seminars, and professional development sessions in the area of distance education.

This objective lend them the share all the new findings in the area of distance education also the new trends.

• Promote applied research and scholarly inquiry in distance education.
• Assist in the development and strengthening of regional and national distance education associations.
• Support the co-ordination of the national and regional development activities of associations and institutions involved in distance education.

In this consortium are more than 120 membership included, to reach the goals and the mission. These memberships are universities and institutions related with distance education programs, the universities belonging to the consortium are from America, Spain and Portugal.

CREAD's web site is http://www.cread.org/

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