The Centre of Competence for Informal Education (CCIE) at the Faculty for Educational Sciences at the University of Bielefeld is conducting research about internet offers for young people and for youth welfare services in the area of informal education on the basis of user requirements.

In the CCIE’s empirical surveys the following aspects are being focussed:

1. User requirements
• preferences of use (navigation, preferences of issues, expectance and habits)
• effect of social factors on the ways of use and access to informal education (gender, age, educational background, socio-economic factors…)
2. quality of online services
• professional quality in relation to user quality
• usability
• structures of the offers for various target groups
3. informal educational processes and structures
• educational aspects in offers for young people and youth welfare services
• educational processes in online-communication