The race is on to survive the competitive educational market which nearly everyone can now access with the click of a mouse. Many institutions are turning to DETs to tap into this market. The difficulty is evaluating the effectiveness of these tools and the education that is provided by them. Implementing a new DET is neither a simple matter nor a light decision-making burden. There is a great deal of hype surrounding DETs, and making an informed decision is not an easy task. Caution must be exercised, especially when contracting with a relatively new ".com" company. This article presents the results of a survey of educational institutions and the DETs that they use, and it presents a framework for evaluating DETs and example evaluations of some of the most popular DETs. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)