Let your mouse do the clicking

Rarely are the best informational nuggets found on a Web site home page. Therefore, it often pays to expend a few mouse clicks and venture deeper into the Web site. Such proved to be the case during my on-line visit to the Rural Utilities Service site (http://www.usda.gov.rus/home/home/htm) a couple of weeks ago.

According to its home page, the RUS is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture. Its mission is to play a leading role in improving the quality of life in rural America by administering its Electrification, Telecommunications and Water and Waste Disposal programs in a service-oriented, forward-looking and financially responsible manner.

Curiosity and personal interest prompted me to click on a RUS home page hyperlink labeled Distance Learning and Telemedicine. It was like opening a treasure chest, revealing a wealth of information about the RUS grant and loan program that helps fund distance learning and telemedicine projects benefiting rural areas. It was a different Web page (http://www.usda.gov.rus/dlt/dlml/htm) that every entity thinking about applying for a grant or loan funded during fiscal year 1997 should access and act on immediately. Submission deadlines are fast approaching.

Interested parties can start by clicking on one of the page's hyperlinks and downloading a copy of the 1997 final distance learning and telemedicine regulation, which became effective June 13. Be forewarned that it is a lengthy document with plenty of fine print. Applicants would be well-advised to read it carefully before going through the grant or loan application process. Take a "Do it right the first time" approach.

According to this Web page, the maximum grant application the RUS will consider for funding during fiscal year 1997 is $300,000. For a loan application, the maximum is $3 million. The deadline for submitting grant applications to be funded during fiscal year 1997 is Aug. 12. Loan applications can be submitted at any time and will be processed as received, but to ensure processing during fiscal year 1997, they should be submitted by Aug. 15. Hyperlinks to the application guides for grants and loans are expected to be activated very soon.

The same Web page has a distance learning and telemedicine "success stories" hyperlink that allows visitors to view a large number of abstracts summarizing how various entities have put grant funds to use on distance learning and telemedicine projects during the past four years.

Contained in this material was a paragraph that impressed me: "The RUS believes that the residents of rural areas and their local institutions which serve them can best determine what are the most appropriate communications or information systems for use in their respective communities. Therefore, in administering this subpart, RUS will not favor or mandate the use of one particular technology over another."

The RUS' approach is the right prescription for promoting innovative thinking and the development of practical solutions to satisfy local needs.

The late Ray Blain was Telephony's senior technical editor when he resigned in 1988 at age 94. An early practitioner of distance learning, Blain earned his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the International Correspondence School in 1923. By the time he retired from his first career in 1961, Blain had become chief engineer of the Plant Engineering Agency in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Were he alive today, I'm sure Ray, who was raised in rural Oklahoma, would be on his feet applauding what the RUS is doing to encourage and improve telemedicine and distance learning services in rural areas.

The RUS home page also has a hyperlink labeled RUS Regulations. Clicking on that put an excellent selection of technical reference material before my eyes. A digital copy of one of its documents, "Electrical Protection Fundamentals" now resides on my PC's hard disk, available for study at my leisure. Isn't that another form of distance learning?