The following lessons have been drawn from researching project documents and in particular from Jos Boys' report Learning Lessons from MLE Development projects - A review of the 7/99 JISC-funded projects', a commissioned JISC report,

-        It is essential to perform an analysis of the organisational issues and challenges associated with implementing an MLE and in particular consideration of the particular local context and issues within which this takes place.

-        Significant cultural differences exist between academic and support staff within and between departments. Tensions can arise where there is a mismatch of control - for example stakeholders who want to maintain and work through existing structures, functions and roles verses those who recognise MLE developments as cross institutional requiring staff to extend their traditional boundaries and work in cross-teams to achieve common goals.

-        In some institutions, particularly the old universities, considerable power lies within the academic departments and this has a major influence on decision-making. There is still generally a two-tiered attitude of academic versus support staff. This influence can be particularly weighty from resource-rich departments. This can impact significantly on the direction and success of an MLE implementation, often leading to an over emphasis on local agendas or an ill-informed bias based on lack of understanding of the technical and organisational issues associated with the MLE development and an arrogance or reluctance to consider expertise and knowledge on this from within support services.

-        There is often a mismatch between central vision and understanding at departmental level. For example senior management may have brought into and signed up to the concept of elearning and an associated strategy but often this is not adequately communicated with staff in support services and academic departments, who will be responsible for implementing, supporting and using it.

-        There are major cultural differences between different departments and functions across institutions. Typically institutions will have a range of support services with their own cultures and internal reporting mechanism, alongside the more flexible and egalitarian academic structures.

-        Staff across institutions are busy and over stretched, with some periods of the year being busier for different groups. It is important to have an understanding of and take account of these peaks and troughs. For example academics will be busy when setting up, running or assessing courses, administrators during enrolment or during the examinations period, students during term time, but increasingly they often have part-time jobs to manage as well as their studies.

-        Cultural changes need to be carefully managed over the lifetime of the project and beyond, in particular as change takes time to permeate into the psyche.-

-        Technical issues are usually overshadowed by institutional and human issues.

-        MLE development inherently demands a high level of cross-institutional collaboration and commitment - more so that other ICT projects.

-        Institutions typically have fairly traditional divisions between academic, administrative and learning support staff, which acts as a barrier to MLE development, which is by nature cross-institutional.

-        Understanding institutional structures, cultures and local contexts is a steep learning curve, with much of the knowledge being intangible and tacit therefore difficult to capture