Starting from the question "In which ways can ICT play a (supportive) role in planning, organising and leading national curriculum debates?" (see introduction of the symposium) an exploratory study was designed with three phases. The first phase consisted of an analysis of inspiring practices, based on the input from four countries that have experience in organising national debates: Finland, Sweden, Scotland and Ireland. Relevant sources (documents, websites, etc.) were gathered in close cooperation with contact persons of the four countries. Based on an analysis framework the situation for each country was analysed: What has been the reason and aim of the debate? What approach was taken in planning and enacting the debate? What roles did ICT play? What lessons have been learned? The results of the desk research were summarised for the pupose of a tentative cross-country comparison, which was used as input for the second phase of the study. The second phase comprised of a two-day seminar. During this seminar the tentative findings of the first phase were presented and experts from the four contries provided feedback and additional information based on their experiences. Moreover, the entire group of participants worked on the formulation of design principles for planning, organizing and managing national curriculum debates. In the third phase a set of design principles was defined, based on the notes, the experiences and the tentative principles that resulted from the seminar. These design principles have been clustered into four categories: 1. What needs to be discussed? 2. Who should be involved? 3. How should this be organised? and 4. Under which circumstances should this be organised? This contribution will cover the design of the study and will elaborate on the main results and conclusions.

Nieveen, N., Fisser, P., Muller, A., & Voogt, J. (2014). Create the debate: Towards a set of design principles for national curriculum debates and dialogues with technology support. Enschede: SLO, Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development.