Participants' engagement with and reactions to the use of on-line action learning sets to support advanced nursing role development.

Professional role development in nursing is occurring at a rapid pace in the UK as elsewhere. Internationally, finding relevant, flexible, sustainable educational solutions to support the preparation of nurses for new roles presents significant challenges for Higher Education Institutions, health service managers and the clinical practitioners who are would-be students. The use of on-line learning is frequently advocated as one means of resolving these difficulties.

Formulating a web-based educational needs assessment questionnaire from healthcare competencies.

This paper by David Cochrane, Janette Palmer, Grace Lindsay, Elizabeth Tolmie, Douglas Allan and Kay Currie describes a project that led to the formulation of an online educational needs assessment tool by drawing on national healthcare competencies in coronary heart disease. It discusses the merits of web-based data collection and concludes that web-based survey systems offer distinct advantages providing researchers proceed with care.