February 28, 2001

The Consortium For Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education (CADRE) is a fascinating example of a national project made up of several individual institutions that is harnessing Internet technology to help it deliver technical assistance to its constituency. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, CADRE developed an online directory of practitioners, a Web discussion forum, and a Listerv to help move the project forward. Michael Stein talked with Marshall Peter, the Director of CADRE, and of Direction Service in Eugene, Oregon, one of CADRE's organizational partners. Together they explored the impact that Internet technology has had on this national program and on his own local agency.

Michael Stein: Marshall, what does your agency do, and how does it fit into CADRE's mission?

Marshall Peter: Direction Service specializes in facilitation and advocacy for families who have children with disabilities. We have people come to us and say "my kid is having a problem." Maybe parents have a child with Downs syndrome that they feel isn't getting proper attention from teachers in school. We're often involved in resolving issues that deal with the extent to which a child with a developmental disability can be educated alongside typically developing peers. A classic example would be a child that requires some amount of speech therapy to help her develop. The parents request one-hour sessions alone with a speech therapist, three times a week, and the school offers a one hour session per week in small groups. We come in to try to mediate these differing approaches to resolving the child's problem, and to determine the exact quantity and characteristics of therapy that would be ideal for the child.

CADRE is a national technical assistance and mediation center for organizations like ours, as well as for state departments of education and parent centers. CADRE grew out of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the law that established a broad menu of entitlements and procedures related to kids needing special education services.

Michael: How does CADRE use the Internet to deliver this technical assistance?

Marshall: CADRE delivers technical assistance and information to a broad array of public and private entities throughout the United States and its territories. The Internet makes this much more efficient and cost effective. For example, the CADRE Web site includes a "Professionals Data Base" that automatically generates Web sites for special education mediators and related professionals, as well as a searchable database for site visitors. More than 200 professionals have entered information into this database.

CADRE also just used their Web site to enroll attendees at a national conference. In the near future, recordings of session presentations will be available at the CADRE site in streaming audio, accompanied by copies of the presenter handouts and photos taken during their session.

Michael: In your role as director of CADRE, what initially led you to the Internet as a potential tool?

Marshall: It was clear from the start, that CADRE's original funding from the U.S. Department of Education would not cover moving people around the country for meetings, or distributing large numbers of paper documents. Yet from the start, CADRE was a national program; the Internet seemed like a medium that could offer us amazing opportunities and stunning efficiencies for providing high quality information and assistance at a low cost. In that regard, the Internet has fully lived up to its promise.

Michael: What kind of challenges did you face in getting buy-in to develop the "Professionals Data Base"?

Marshall: Learning something new is often difficult, but this project evolved as the Internet was evolving, so we rode that wave. Providing each professional with personal, password-protected access to their own database record set a tone of individual responsibility and buy-in. In return, those who listed themselves received a free Web site and inclusion in a database that might lead to referrals and other opportunities. Also, when we originally designed the database, we had to resolve whether or not to review the information that people were entering before it was posted to the site. We chose not to, and instead opted for individual responsibility. So far, that's been a good decision. We've not had any complaints about individuals misrepresenting themselves.

Michael: What impact has the "Professionals Data Base" had on the community?

Marshall: We know that professionals update their listings and that site visitors search the database regularly. That much we can see from the WebTrends access logs that we evaluate on a regular basis. We've received a steady stream of feedback from our network that the database helps people know who is out there, but it's not as crystal clear as we'd like it to be. In an ideal world, we would do some careful market analysis to better understand it. We feel that the database influences the field and that it's worth continuing, especially in light of there being no real maintenance cost now that it's set up. In the meantime, we're working to reorganize and simplify the overall Web site to address the growth in content and the productive feedback we've received from people who use it regularly.

Michael: It sounds like some of your impact assessment is based on anecdotal information, but that you feel pretty strongly that it ought to influence your future course.

Marshall: I think that kind of outcome measurement happens a lot in organizations. In the print medium, we've published several influential reports on mediation over the past few years, distributed them widely. Fundamentally, we don't know their precise impact on the field other than what we judge to be their impact based on personal conversations, email dialogue, and networking with colleagues. And some of our impact assessment isn't merely anecdotal. At its peak, the Web site receives more than 200 visitor sessions a day, with an average of more than 10 minutes per visit. Those numbers have steadily grown. That's mind-boggling to me. At CADRE's National Symposium last November, there was palpable excitement about the next generation of what we had planned for the Internet. Almost everyone who attended the Symposium logged onto the Web site to sign up for the event, pick a t-shirt size and get room assignments. We created email address lists in advance of the sessions to allow presenters to interact with participants. Now that the Symposium is over, we're finalizing all the audio, video and handout content for Web publication, and that continues to generate excitement.

Michael: What were the biggest challenges that your organization had to go through to adapt to the Internet?

Marshall: We had to make new hardware and software purchases to be able to use all this new technology, and some of our staff spent considerable amounts of time learning Web publishing technology. Probably the bigger challenge was our need to be dependent upon a technology company to run our Web site. I guess I'm not used to that kind of dependence. This dependence is not only on a company but on technology in general. I mean, you just don't know from day to day how some of these machines behave. Plus, we had to learn a lot about the largely unregulated issues around copyrights, intellectual property rights, the appropriateness of hypertext links, and so forth. Finally, CADRE's funding allowed us to make a very significant investment in the CADRE Web site.

Michael: Let's delve a little further into your experience with your technology providers. How much of an impact do you think they've made on your work?

Marshall: It might not have turned out the way it did if we hadn't met the vendor that we met and stuck with them. We were able to find an Internet vendor, Resourceful Internet Solutions, that had actual experience in the field of mediation. They've brought both technical and content expertise to our project that is rare. It's more of a partnership than a vendor contract. I hear about people that switch Internet companies as often as they switch copy shops. We've gotten very high value from our Internet vendor and placed a lot of trust in them and been rewarded.

Michael: You had some interesting experience with online Web forums and Listservs. Describe that effort and its impact.

Marshall: At the beginning of our online effort, we designed an interactive Web forum for individuals who wished to participate in online discussions around various topics of shared interest. The forum contained nine separate areas where participants could engage each other, including one area devoted to professionals. The effort died for lack of participation. We were too ambitious and unable to provide the ongoing facilitation necessary to help them fly. Online discussions weren't as commonplace as they are now and people didn't use them. We don't operate them anymore.

One of the major problems that we faced was people who wrote lengthy and complex questions directed to us, requiring complex responses. It was awkward for us to respond minimally in front of a large forum subscriber base. As a result, we were vulnerable to whimsical requests. The time clearly wasn't right for us for this type of Web technology. Maybe it'll have a future role.

Listservs, on the other hand, are a big hit. People are simply more comfortable with simple email interaction. We operate a Listserv that is limited to state mediation coordinators from around the country, and we've been really pleased by the level and quality of participation. Currently, a network of about 65 participants, who share the same professional roles, discuss issues, dilemmas, and needs. In one remarkable interaction, a coordinator from one state asked how others handle enforceability of agreements. Within 24 hours, 16 different people responded from around the country. These state people rarely meet face to face. I think this is one of the most satisfying aspects of what we do and it gives us some very tangible demonstration of impact.

Michael: What is CADRE doing with email and email newsletters and what impact do you think it's made on the project?

Marshall: Email produces remarkable efficiencies in our work. Whether we're publishing the CADRE Caucus, an e-zine that goes out to about 1,000 subscribers around the country, or simply corresponding with colleagues, I'm continually stunned by the power of email. What do they call it, the "killer app"? It seems kind of trivial to be raving about email, but our work is about communicating and building networks, and email has made a powerful impact. It's quick, it's affordable, it works. It's not problem-free, though. Its speed and low cost allows people to make very complex requests without regard to the recipient's reaction or availability. We've had to adapt to new etiquettes of reply expectation, and to personal boundaries, since email volume continues to grow and it arrives 24 hours per day. Email also creates an easy ability to send communication that's misunderstood due to lack of intonation and real time interaction. We're in the mediation business, where words and dialogue have high value.