Professional Learning Communities can use an online community presence to enhance the effectiveness of their group by:

• increasing awareness of issues
• knowledge sharing between community members and other interested parties
• announcing current and future events to both community members and the public
• interest others in joining the community
• sharing strategies and experiences
• problem solving in conjunction with other members

Education Queensland corporate information
The community website is not a venue for corporate data, normally found on Education Queensland web sites.  Many forms and proformas are available via the admin side of the network (e.g. corporate data) and Ed Info services.  These various types of official data/forms/proformas are not to be copied onto community sites, and community managers will be asked to remove any such content.

Information, data, forms and proformas found on official EQ websites are constantly vetted, checked and updated by the various sections concerned, and this means that any forms or information copied onto a community site could quickly become out of date.  If access to official information or proformas is regularly needed, all that is required is a link to the site concerned, with an explanatory note on the weblink.

Using photographs of children and adults
If you wish to publish a photograph or name of a student or adult on your site, then written permission must be obtained.  In the case of a student, the written permission must be obtained from the child's parent or legal guardian.  Written consent expires after one year, so consent will have to be obtained again if the photograph is to be retained or reused.

A copy of the written consent should be held by community managers indefinitely, even after the photograph has been removed from the site, as it may already have been copied by someone else during that time.

If the picture is then used, it is preferable not to identify the student by name, but if necessary then only the student's first name should be used as an identifier.

The written consent should acknowledge the fact that the consent is given for publication to a world-wide audience on the World Wide Web.  Staff and student consent forms can be found on the EQ Consent to use Copyright Material, Image, Recording or Name site.