Abstract

This article reports on ongoing work at the five universities in northeastern England, Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland, and Teesside. In common with many universities, all five have been engaged in the process of evaluating and implementing online learning environments. During the 1999-2000 academic year the authors organized a series of meetings to share information and experience. From these meetings and other activities the group identified a set of issues and criteria that they felt needed to be addressed to inform the decision making process. This article will report on these. The process is, of course, ongoing with all of the institutions having elaborated implementation strategies. The article will also report briefly on these decisions. However, it is perhaps significant that the four universities that have, at the time of writing, chosen a VLE have independently chosen the same one, Blackboard.