Tuesday, April 25, 2000

Study-Abroad Guides on the Web Reveal a World of Opportunities to Students and Travelers By PAUL DESRUISSEAUX For decades educators have considered two encyclopedic volumes published annually by the Institute of International Education -- Academic Year Abroad and Vacation Study Abroad -- to be the best sources of such information available to American students. But in the Internet age, thumbing through a dog-eared directory is not how students prefer to conduct such research. Recognizing that fact, the institute has developed a new site on the World Wide Web that, foreign-study advisers say, allows students to search in ways not previously possible for programs fitting their budgets, schedules, and interests. The nonprofit institute, which is the largest educational and cultural exchange organization in the United States, administers many U.S.-sponsored educational and cultural exchanges. Its new portal site, called IIE Passport, makes available online the expanded contents of its study-abroad directories in a form that accommodates searches using as many as 35 criteria. (The institute plans to continue publishing paper versions of the popular directories, which are now in their 50th year.) The I.I.E. site is the latest entry in a field that has also attracted a few commercial Web sites, the best known of which are studyabroad.com and Goabroad.com. IIE Passport, however, appears to be the most versatile and comprehensive study-abroad site on the Web. The site also has a link to the passport-services portion of the U.S. State Department's Web site, where applications for U.S. passports can be downloaded. The president of the institute, Allan E. Goodman, has been promoting the idea that colleges today should require their students to have a passport, and the name of the new site underscores the point. According to statistics compiled by the institute, the numbers of American students doing academic work abroad have surged in recent years, from 62,341 in 1987-88 to 113,959 in 1997-98, the most recent year for which such figures are available. The site allows students as well as adult travelers looking for a learning vacation to conduct sophisticated searches. They can search among the 137 available programs in Japan, for example, by cost, credit, duration, eligibility, field of study, housing, language of instruction, and several other variables. The I.I.E. site also allows students and other users to save their online searches for up to 90 days. "The way the searches work is substantially different from the commercial sites, where typically the only choices you have are country and subject and maybe a combination of the two," says William E. Nolting, director of international opportunities at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. "And the commercial sites just don't have the kind of complete information you can find on the I.I.E. site. But just the fact that these sites have been out there has, I think, helped attract more students to the idea of studying abroad." The number of inquiries from people who learned of study-abroad programs online "is skyrocketing," Mr. Nolting says. Sponsors of such programs report that the Web may account for more than half of all new requests for information, he adds. Troy Peden, one of the founders of Goabroad.com, which has been online for a year, says the site now attracts 40,000 to 50,000 "unique viewers" per month, which translates into "about four million hits and maybe 400,000 page impressions." A former study-abroad adviser at the University of Denver, Mr. Peden acknowledges that his site "definitely cannot compete with the reputation and long-time commitment of I.I.E.," as well as its online presentation. However, he notes that his site is looking to reach different segments of the market, including students who might be more interested in volunteer opportunities abroad than in study. His company also operates the sites teachabroad.com and volunteerabroad.com. "We see ourselves in both the alternative travel and international-education fields," says Mr. Peden. "At Denver we had a lot of nontraditional students, and that's why we came up with our model. We'll include a program offering two weeks of volunteering in Africa as well as one for a semester at the University of Paris." The Center for Education Abroad at Beaver College advertises on commercial sites and is also a sponsor of IIE Passport. Lorna Stern, the center's deputy director, says the institute has the advantage of a "wonderful track record of promoting international education." But she also notes that advertisers on the IIE Passport site are more than just a banner or a link, and they can update their material at will. "There also is ample room for descriptive material," she says. "I think its usefulness to students will only grow." Another new study-abroad Web site is offered by the Center for Global Education at the University of Southern California. Aimed primarily at program administrators, it includes information and links related to health and safety abroad, subjects that have become major concerns for colleges in recent years, as the number of American students heading to other countries has climbed. The Web site includes a clearing-house for health and safety information that is co-sponsored by the Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. Among other resources that the site draws on are frank and well-written materials that the Peace Corps prepares and distributes to its volunteers before they head abroad. The center's site also has links to the State Department's Web site, which describes services for citizens abroad and features a special "Tips for Students" section. Gary Rhodes, the director of the U.S.C. center, says most study-abroad links to the State Department's Web site stop at the page that lists official warnings against travel to particular countries. "But this section gives a good background message on what students should be aware of before they go abroad," he says, "and just what sort of support they can expect from the State Department if they have difficulties overseas." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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