Community members receive tailored news on what is happening now in ICT for higher education around Europe, while members can establish their own groups to discuss topics of their interest.

The HEXTLEARN (Higher Education exploring ICT use for Lifelong Learning) network maps the use of ICT by carrying out extensive research of good practices, analysing the different approaches in ICT/eLearning processes in implementing lifelong learning strategies in the educational institutions. A pool of reviewers carries out peer-review exercises based on collaboration among experts of the ICT approaches and applications.

To date, numerous interesting good practices have been uploaded by community members and several groups have been created. Practices in various areas, such as the Finnish Virtual University, which combines 21 Finnish universities, and the University of Ulster's good-practice offer, supporting both on-campus and off-campus students via ICT, indicate that ICT use in higher educational institutions is turning innovation into everyday practice.

During the peer review process, international and national face-to-face and online networking activities support the exchange of information and practices and foster communication and interaction between transversal learning communities. Any institution described as displaying good practice in the HEXTLEARN online community is eligible for peer review in case it gets rated and recommended by the community members.

Peer reviews will focus on quality aspects of ICT use in the institutional framework: learner services, learning delivery, learning development, teaching capability, evaluation and assessment capacity, accessibility, technical capability, and institutional capability.

The project is financed by the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme 2007-2013 - Transversal Programme and will run until the end of 2010.