Consequently, the number of definitions for what can be considered ‘needs’ has led to a correspondingly wide range of definitions of needs analysis. Ellis gives us the rather straight- forward definition of needs analysis as ‘a procedure for establishing the specific needs of lan- guage learners’ (2003: 345–6). While this is certainly true, it is far too general to be of much use to the course designer. A more complete view is given in Brown (2006), which takes into account the range of sources from which information can be gathered as well as the number of stakeholders for whom that analysis will be relevant: