Summer is here and CLEAR is following its annual ritual of celebrating the season's change by moving into advanced planning for its annual conference. This year, there's something additional keeping CLEAR staff busy and I think you'll like the result. I'm both pleased and excited to announce that the members-only section of CLEAR's Web site will be made available before the conference. Initial online sections will include the long-awaited directory by profession and directory by jurisdiction. The initial directory will include the 50 most frequently requested professions and occupations, with others added following the annual conference. Other online sections will include a member message forum, a membership list, a speakers connection^*, a consultant bank^*, committee/board minutes, CLEAR policies and procedures, and lists of central agency administrators, national

professional associations and associations of state boards. All in all, pretty useful information for those of us on this side of the fence.

Resource Briefs, one copy of which is free to all members, now will be published online in the members-only section. Additional printed copies will still be available for sale, but one great advantage to the membership of publishing online is that they can now be made available individually without waiting for the entire series to be published. Another new project going on at CLEAR is a new organizational plan. If the Board approves the initial draft, we'll provide copies to membership by the time of the annual conference.

I'd like to make a personal appeal for each of you to try and attend this year's annual conference. We're making certain that the meeting will not only be useful, but a lot of fun as well. You've probably noticed in the flyer that, in response to your requests, the

conference will begin at noon on Thursday and run all day Friday and Saturday. This marks the first conference format change in 20 years. There are a few events I'd like to bring to your attention: Thursday night is a reception followed by a sock hop, which is a revival of a CLEAR tradition from years past; Friday night we'll celebrate that fact the 2001 meeting will be back in San Antonio; and Saturday, we'll have a general session featuring Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run With Wolves.

I am enjoying my time as your President and thank you for the opportunity to serve. If there are any issues you'd like to bring to my attention, please don't hesitate to contact me by sending an e-mail to guffey@dpor.state.va.us^*If you are a CLEAR member and wish to be included in either the consultant bank or the speakers connection, please send an e-mail to project coordinator Scott Seymour, letting him know your specialty subject areas. Of course, CLEAR will not make recommendations regarding the individuals listed in these two resources.

ARELLO ...(continued from page 1)

seen a real estate practitioner lately--the one with the cell phone in one hand and the laptop in the other--it surprise you that real estate was the industry among us to develop a program that we all can use to address our regulatory concerns while not getting in the way of our licensees' access to more information. Real estate regulators, through their industry association and their liaison with both higher education and continuing education providers, have researched distance education delivery and discovered that it has many strengths and can provide an excellent education experience when administered with integrity. Like you, they have also been exposed to enough to know that there are distance-delivered programs that claim to be educational and have very little, if any, integrity. A set of accepted standards by which to measure and evaluate these programs was needed. After an extensive search and many discussions with regulators from other states and provinces, and educators from various institutions; it was discovered that, apparently, a comprehensive set of standards for distance education

delivery did not exist.

Real estate regulators took their concerns to the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO) and received approval to expend funds from a research fund to hire a qualified consultant and to support a task force in developing standards for the approval of distance education. ARELLO has succeeded in this endeavor with the significant input and guidance of Dr. Robert Meyer, a Fulbright Scholar in Distance Education. By all reports ARELLO is quite proud of the results of the task force's extensive efforts. The Standards were completed in the fall of 1998, approved by ARELLO's Board of Directors, and made available for purchase. It is important to note that these standards are educational measures, and are not specific at all to the real estate industry.

An obvious complement to this body of work was the creation of an ARELLO Distance Education Certification program. Applicants for certification will fill out a course-assessment document and will receive the benefit of the

consultant's expertise to affirm or strengthen various aspects of their course. Certification has already been granted to courses now numbering in the hundreds. Reports from the Certification Council and the course developers have been very supportive and complimentary of the process. Certified programs receive recognition on ARELLO's website at www.arello.net and are entitled to display the certified logo on their course materials and marketing media. A recent ARELLO seminar on the standards and the certification in Las Vegas sold out within just two weeks, with the only registration form available on line with little advertisement. It seems interest continues to grow rapidly.

The certification is proving very valuable. Well-designed distance education courses have legitimacy and serve a valuable purpose. It is important to evaluate these courses using a comprehensive and consistent set of criteria, i.e. ARELLO's standards, to protect the quality of education that we have enjoyed to this date. Because in many cases it would require the services
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