The experiences of such organisations as British Telecom, Qantas, National Computing Centre, Cable & Wireless and Financial Times Management who have been involved in online learning for a considerable period of time provided invaluable first hand information on the successes and the pitfalls of online learning. Two key themes recurred throughout the conference. The first was that organisations considering introducing online learning should not become enslaved by the technology and the second was that under no circumstance should the needs of the learner be ignored.

Organisations setting up online courses were urged not to be deceived into thinking that they represent a cheap option. Good quality online learning can not be achieved by transferring learning materials to CD-Rom, making tutors redundant and expecting students to get on with it. Developing online material can be both costly and time consuming. As John Eary of NCC pointed out, 200 hours of training development material may only last a student 1 hour on the web and online material needs to be continuously updated.