The inspectorate pledges to step up its work with the further education sector to ensure the best of what it sees in some colleges is adopted in all. The Scottish Funding Council is to make a contribution.

Securing the Adoption of Good Practice in Scotland’s Colleges, published last week, recommends case studies, online materials from websites and published research as vehicles for spreading good practice. Colleges already use a wide range of methods to identify and share good work, such as team and self-evaluations, learner focus groups and survey questionnaires.

But collaborative approaches to learning and continuing professional development are also being used to improve good practice, the report added.

External college reports also provide additional stimuli by spotting and sharing good practice.

Associate assessors, serving lecturers drafted on to HMIE teams, are praised as another “rich potential source of good practice”.

HMIE based its findings on survey results from a sample of colleges between October and December 2005 , as well as the views of focus groups from 14 colleges in Dundee, Glasgow and Livingston.