How do you define best practices in relation to the Community Learning Space project? A search for a definition resulted in many different approaches. The following Best Practices definitions apply to what has been learned from the community learning space project.

• Web sites that are excellent examples of community content, such as Web sites about a vicinity produced by local residents for their neighbors, human services information for a specific region produced by a nonprofit or an alliance of community-based organizations. (Contentbank)
• Sites demonstrate unparalleled excellence across six criteria: content, structure and navigation, visual design, interactivity, functionality, and overall experience. Best Practices sites serve as an industry benchmark for the most current, innovative, and advanced practices in Web development. (Webby Awards)
• Methods of performing a process or sub-process that have been identified inside or outside of the organization and which are validated, codified, diffused, and shared with others to encourage reciprocity and knowledge sharing. (Gotcha is your guide to Knowledge Management (KM))
• Planning and/or operational practices that have proven successful in particular circumstances. Best practices are used to demonstrate what works and what does not and to accumulate and apply knowledge about how and why they work in different situations and contexts. (United Nations Development Programme - Handbook on Monitoring and Evaluating for Results

Waterloo Region's Community Learning Space contains excellent community content gathered by local community organizations; the technology developed adds value to the community content to provide functionality; the learning space project encourages knowledge sharing within and without this community; the learning academy documents the processes that work for sharing with other communities.

Community Learning Space Best Practices outlines the research results.