InfoNet, the information service on adult education in Europe, has established itself as a source of information among the specialists. This is shown by the user figures of a statistical analysis presented by InfoNet editor and project coordinator Michael Sommer at the annual conference of the initiative in Akademie Klausenhof (Germany).

According to this, the topical “InfoLetters”, which are published every two months, are downloaded around 30,000 times a year. The web portal is also used by around 4,000 visitors a month. “However, the potential target group of (English-speaking) experts in adult education who are interested in Europe is not very large which means that InfoNet will continue to be a specialist portal.” It has, however, been shown that many European institutions in the EU member states, like the European agencies there for example, use InfoNet as a source. Overall, the approach has proven to be successful with its short, journalistic articles on current topics, best practice examples and projects.

32 network members came to Akademie Klausenhof for the annual conference that was opened by KBE (Catholic Association for Adult Education) director Andrea Hoffmeier. The meeting simultaneously formed the end of the second promotion stage and a third period has been proposed. All work tasks were able to be completed within the last three-year period. Included in this were the launching of the offer to interested people outside the network, the development and implementation of a standard marketing strategy and the technical and visual update of the homepage (www.infonet-ae.eu).  InfoNet has compiled and published around 500 journalistic articles and 18 newsletters on adult education in Europe.

“European InfoNet Adult Education” is supported by the Lifelong Learning programme (“Grundtvig”). Akademie Klausenhof coordinates the project that currently has correspondents in almost every European country regularly contributing articles.