infed – the encyclopaedia of pedagogy and informal education – is a not-for-profit, and cookie-free resource. We aim to provide a space to explore education, pedagogy, community-building and change.
a space to explore
We look to explore, in particular, the theory and practice of informal education, social pedagogy, community learning and development, specialist education, and lifelong learning. infed was established in 1995 and has developed over the years with support from the Rank Foundation, the Practice Development Research Unit and the YMCA George Williams College (the last two have now closed).
not for profit, ‘cookie-free’ and open
The site is offered as a service to the field and is run on a not-for-profit basis. Access to the pages is free and open to all. We carry no paid-for advertising, nor do any of the editorial links to other sites involve sponsorship or payment. Some links may include advertising, but again, there is no payment to us. We do not need click-throughs, nor to make money from ‘digital exhaust’, so we are cookie-free (see our privacy policy). Most users come straight from search engines (and probably return there). We just focus on content.
listed
We have been endorsed by various sites and won commendations from organisations like Encyclopedia Britannica, Adult Learning Australia, the Study Web and Schoolzone. We are part of the British Library archiving project, and a number of the pages are included on the UNESCO/NCVER voced database and on SOSIG (the Social Science Information Gateway). Thousands of sites link to us (including the BBC, Channel 4, The Guardian and various educational institutions – for example, Harvard, MIT, and the Open University).
used by lots of people
We have a rough idea of how many people use our pages and which pages they use. However, just who they are remains a mystery, and that will continue as we do not use Google Analytics etc. At the moment, the site looks to have around 1.4 million visits a year. The top ten countries in June 2025 (based on the number of pages downloaded) were as follows: 1. USA (52%), 2. UK (11%), 3. Poland (8%), 4. India (3%), 5. Canada (3%), Japan (3%), 6. (3%), 7. South Africa (2%), 8. China 2%, 9. Indonesia (1%), 10. Netherlands (1%). In total, there were downloads from over 160 countries/’locales’.
editorial
infed is edited by Mark K. Smith. Tony Jeffs also helps to compile the archives and encyclopedia.
Acknowledgement: image Fabio Santaniello Bruun on Unsplash
