Online continuing dental education

Background. An increasing number of continuing dental education, or CDE, co urses are available on the Internet. The authors conducted this study to de termine general characteristics of online CDE course offerings. Methods. The authors found online CDE courses through Internet search engin es and dental indexes. They recorded each course's Web page address, title, topic, length, credit hours and cost. Then they classified course provider s, categorized topics, compared course length with credit hours and calcula ted cost per credit hour. Results. The authors located 157 online CDE courses offered by 32 providers . The courses covered a wide range of topics, and most were;five screens lo ng or shorter. Credit hours per screen ranged from 0.05 to two, and cost pe r credit hour ranged from no charge to $25. Conclusions. Online CDE courses are hard to locate, making this material ac cessible only to people who are well-versed in retrieving information on th e Internet. The brevity of most courses may make them appropriate for incre mental study at the dental practitioner's convenience. Guidelines to correl ate credit hours with course length should be developed. Practice Implications. Online CDE courses may become an important tool to h elp practitioners keep current. Several issues, however, need to be address ed before online CDE can reach its full potential.