National policy contexts and institutional policies and structures had an important impact on the project.

Knowledge of the national policy e-learning context in both the UK and China were essential to guide our understanding of the strategic context for developing the courses, the reasons for the importance being given to e-learning and inter-cultural understanding and how this impacts on the motivation of the institutional teams from Sheffield and BNU.

At Sheffield, the institutional structures for e-learning are determined centrally by senior management, who in turn are influenced by national HEFCE policy. The task of interpreting and implementing this is devolved to academic departments. At BNU, there is the same strategic direction for e-learning by senior management, but because of hierarchical traditions, the implementation of e-learning is directed centrally.

We sometimes found the formality of institutional structures in China meant that we spent time meeting senior managers in institutions who were not connected to the project, rather than spending time with team members who were actually doing the work.