The study (1.1) Commissioned by CEDEFOP has been undertaken by a partnership of seven countries comprising: France, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain. This partnership allowed for data to be collected on a transnational basis and for the analysis of comparative trends across member states. The project also offered another opportunity for collaborative research by a partnership of professional practitioners, e-learning developers, educationalists and university researchers. The research team consisted of: · Transnational Consultants, two from the UK and one from France, whose responsibility was to formulate the project'' research methodology, to design its research tools, to select the case studies for inclusion in the research, to analyse the resulting data and to produce the Final Project Report. · Ttnet Network Leaders and leaders of the Associated Networks whose role was to identify appropriate case study sites in their own countries, to select National Experts (field researchers) and to issue the purpose-designed research tools to the National Experts. The overarching outcome of the project was to produce findings on innovative practice in e- learning that would be of value to professional practitioners (such as educationalists, web designers and instructional designers) policy makers (at both member state and Commission level) and researchers. In essence, the outcomes were meant to inform both policy and practice. Research objectives The purpose of the project was to identify examples of 'innovative practice' in e-Learning development and delivery, and the range of activities, competencies and roles involved in innovative practice. Innovative practice was defined as: Initiatives, projects and activities that have a tangible impact on improving trainers and/or teachers' skills, professionalisation and working environment; and proven to be sustainable in their social, pedagogical and organisational components and/or through lasting changes in policy and decision-making. (Comment on the concept "innovation". This concept is notoriously context dependent and as such its usefulness is being questioned by policy-makers. The term "effective" is now seen to be of more transferable use). In order to fulfil the aim of the project, a number of research objectives were specified, namely to: · Identify examples of innovative practice for the training of trainers/teachers with specific reference to eLearning. · Describe the approaches to the management of innovative projects. · Identify the kind of pedagogic principles and models of learning (whether tacit or overt) underpinning effective design. · Describe and analyse the originating circumstances (by which is meant the context, specific learning or organisational needs) threats and opportunities that have driven the innovation. · Identify the types and scale of output. · Present an impact analysis arising from the examples of innovative practice (and the potential for transferability and scalability) Research methodology One approach would have been to conduct a survey using a large-scale sample. However, a number of such surveys have already been completed, some of them commissioned by Cedefop. The survey approach can also present a number of limitations. Firstly, if a postal survey approach is used, research tools have to be kept modest in length otherwise the return rate becomes adversely affected. With web-based surveys, respondents tend to be self-selecting and therefore the extent to which their views are representative of the whole population is questionable. With both postal and web-based surveys, the detail of responses can tend towards the generalised or even the superficial since surveys often have to cover a multiplicity of issues. The purpose of this study, however, was to get to the heart of what is happening in terms of 'best practice', providing detailed and, hopefully, illuminating data on innovation in e-learning development and implementation. It was felt that a case study method was ideally suited to these aims since it can provide richness and layering of data that other approaches do not often match.