infed  was established in 1995 at the YMCA George Williams College, London as an open and not-for-profit site. Put together by a small group of educators, it is now accessed over 6 million times a year.

a space to explore

Our aim is to provide a space for people to explore the theory and practice of informal education, social action and lifelong learning.

not for profit and open

The site is offered by the College 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. The site itself carries no advertising, nor do any of the editorial links to other sites involve sponsorship or payment. The site does, however, receive a discount from our ISP for placing a link at the bottom of the pages. Custom search is provided free (for not-for-profits) by Google. In addition, the pressing the print button (to pdf or to paper) will display a small advertisement as this particular function is provided by a third party.

listed

We are endorsed by various sites and have won commendations from organizations like Encyclopaedia 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 millions

We know how many people use our pages, where they come from and how long they spend with us. However, just who they are is something of a mystery. At the moment the page gets around 3.5 million unique visitors a year. Over the last 12 months visitors come from over 222 countries/territories (Source: Google Analytics). The pattern of usage from different countries alters over the year. For example, the numbers drop when there are vacations or when universities are less full. Around 38% of users come from the United States and 30% from the UK.

editorial

The homepage is edited by Mark K. Smith. Michele Erina Doyle and Tony Jeffs also help to compile the archives and encyclopaedia.

We can be contacted at infed.org, YMCA George Williams College, 199 Freemasons Road, Canning Town, London E16 3PY (e) info@infed.org; (t) 44 020 7540 4929

Click for more about how you can write for us and our privacy policy etc.

YMCA George Williams College is the trading name of YMCA George Williams Company. A company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales, Number 2978406. Registered Charity Number 1044624