CEDEFOP, an agency of the European Commission, published a handbook in 2018 that describes 25 ICT in guidance initiatives in EU Member States. Some of these initiatives were established for and in the education sector while others are from the employment sector. A common feature of both sets of initiatives is their focus on the use of labour market information (LMI) in assisting users to make career choices.
The descriptions of the initiatives highlight both the variability and fragility of assessing the impact of such initiatives. The descriptions themselves could benefit from a clearer statement of the aims and objectives of each of the initiatives, and of their policy objectives (as opposed to their specific aims and objectives), as both could elucidate the issue of transferability to which one chapter is devoted. Given that the examples were chosen on the basis of the use of LMI in the ICT guidance initiatives, the handbook would have benefitted from a concluding chapter concerning the value of LMI in ICT guidance initiatives for different target groups, drawing on knowledge gained from the study, and/or on other lessons learned from the study e.g. ICT for guidance impact evaluation challenges, which in turn would have enriched the bland discussion of the policy implications in the last chapter.
Notwithstanding, the overview is useful, particularly the tables provided in the opening section.