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This paper aims to provide context for papers in this special issue on Australasian e‐learning. The paper aims to examine the background to Australian flexible and transnational education and to evaluate the educational and intuitional flexibility of three typical products of the Australian educational software industry.

The history of Australian distance education is summarised and drivers for flexible education are presented. A model of flexible educational software is introduced with three dimensions: educational, institutional and support/training. Three educational software products are informally reviewed using this model to establish that the current generation of Australian educational software offers significant educational and institutional flexibility.

The three examples of Australian educational software rate highly in both educational and institutional flexibility and also offer excellent support.

The existence of hot spots of educational technology innovation in relatively isolated areas such as Perth and Tasmania warrants further investigation.

The Australian educational software industry produces extremely flexible products with excellent support that are worthy of consideration by international customers. Policy makers in Australia are alerted that current policies in ICT off shoring and the Australian Research Quality Framework (equivalent to the British Research Assessment Exercise) may threaten this industry, which contributes to sizable exports in transnational education.

The paper brings the flexible nature of Australian educational software to light for an international audience.

The arrival of the personal computer in education did not appear to be greatly significant at first; it did not serve any obvious educational goal, and software was inaccessible, unappealing and impractical, which decreased the popularity of the use of computers for educational purposes. The same seemed to apply to the use of the Internet for education. Properly tailored multimedia software, however, could open up all kinds of possibilities: telematics could give existing educational software a new dimension. There are seven stages to preparing and developing education in the “telelearning environment”: planning the educational route; formalizing the route and signing up; exchange of information about all aspects of the route to the student; practising and sending in first assignments; processing of the assignment data; evaluating the assignments and distribution of new assignments; and final tests. Although, at this point, none of these stages is yet operative, experiments have already taken place and will continue to take place in this area. All this will enhance drastic changes for everyone involved with education: the traditional and classical educational setting, where all teaching responsibilities ‐ preparation, execution and follow‐up care ‐ were carried out by the teacher himself will be replaced by a new way of teaching, based on paying more attention to the individual student, forcing the teacher to delegate educational responsibilities, and increasing the independence of pupils and their responsibility for their own educational development.

Web-enhanced instruction is increasingly pervasive in higher education. Homework assignments and exams are increasingly completed online. Instructors evaluate the effectiveness of educational tools, such as web-based homework (WBH), in part through student performance that can be affected by students’ motivation. Thus, changes in students’ motivations and perceptions during an academic term can affect our assessment of the efficacy of the educational tool depending on when our assessment is conducted. No current studies identify variations in student perceptions of educational technology over time. Better understanding the changes in student perceptions of educational technology as they complete a course of study may help educators develop more effective instructional and pedagogical strategies. Our study explores how students’ attitudes toward WBH change with use.

The purpose of this exploratory research is to analyse the marketing activities of software companies in the UK educational software sector. The paper aims to explore the marketing environment and to investigate whether there are differences in experiences, attitudes and approaches between different sizes of firms.

Semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews were undertaken with key respondents who had responsibility for marketing, marketing managers or owner/managers. Themes were identified alongside contextual social and organizational effects.

The marketplace is dominated by several large firms and heavily influenced by government. Overall, five factors were identified that were experienced by all businesses in the sector: challenges in identifying the “customer”; school's budgetary constraints; the IT competence of teachers; the importance of word‐of mouth recommendations; and, the use of partnerships. Differences between small and large firms centred on: understanding of competitive structure; perception of their business's marketing strengths; and, approaches to communication and interaction with customers.

Proposals for further research are offered.

The paper offers a profile of the educational software marketplace and indicates that a number of marketing issues similarly have an effect on all businesses. Differences in behaviour and attitudes are associated with company size and respondent professional/work expertise. In particular, smaller businesses tend to be customer oriented, but often not market oriented.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a computer‐assisted learning experience in operations management (OM) higher education that entailed the development of interactive learning software, its evaluation in an experimental environment and the formal analysis of the teaching method's influence on student perceptions.

The software design follows the constructivist focus based on widely‐accepted educational technology principles. Objective tests of knowledge and subjective appraisal of the learning process were used in the experiment to compare two educational scenarios (computer‐assisted learning and on‐site class). Students' perceptions of the software's technical and teaching features are also analyzed.

The study shows that the teaching method can significantly affect students' perceptions of the learning process. The findings also confirm the pedagogical effectiveness of the software that was designed and that information communication technologies (ICT)‐based methods are an alternative to traditional methods used in OM education.

The experiment involved strict control over various potential threats to validity. From a statistical point‐of‐view, the conclusions can only be generalized in the population analyzed. Nevertheless, the features of the software and the student profile allow the main conclusions to be generalized to other OM environments.

The use and evaluation of interactive software in OM educational environments are reflected on, with emphasis on the influence that the teaching methodology has on students' attitudes to the learning process. It is of interest for researchers interested in improving teaching through the use of ICT.

There are very few studies on interactive self‐learning software for OM and its effects on student perceptions. This paper is a new contribution to this field.

There is no computer topic today more widely discussed, that occupies more pages in the popular and academic journals than computer software. It is said to be sparse, nonexistent, ineffective, “junk,” inaccurate, incomprehensible, unsuitable, etc. Software is essential to the efficacy of any school computer operation, yet rarely purchased concomitant with the equipment itself. Originally, vendors gave away software with every hardware purchase. Today, school practitioners recommend that schools should budget twice the cost of the hardware for appropriate materials. The New York Times, in an article entitled “Computers: The Action's in Software,” reveals much about the economics of a field that is just beginning its rapid growth phase (November 8, 1981). Indeed, schools may come to the realization with this technology that equipment without software is a projector without a film, a phonograph without a record.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of literature on the role of Web 2.0 or social software tools in education.

This paper is a critical and comprehensive review of a range of literature sources (until January 2009) addressing the various issues related to the educator's perspective of pedagogical effectiveness of social software tools.

The paper provides insights about the: educational goals of using social software tools; benefits to the students, educators and institutions; challenges that may influence a social software initiative; and issues that need to be considered in a social software initiative.

It is hoped that the analysis, as captured in this paper, will highlight the different pedagogical roles of social software: communication, nurturing creativity and innovation, and collaborative learning. The paper will be of interest to researchers in the areas of social software and technology‐enabled learning environments, in general. Further, this paper demonstrates how the analysis of academic literature sources has been combined with commentaries and opinions on the web to develop this literature review.

The review has been written from an educator's perspective: the questions and challenges that an educator encounters when considering the use of social software tools for learning and teaching. The analysis of the literature review in this paper is presented as answers to questions, which educators may have about social software initiatives. The findings in this paper may influence learning and teaching strategies in higher and further education – specifically institutions that are considering the use of social software.

The paper presents theoretical underpinnings related to pedagogical role of social software tools. In this paper, the practical issues and challenges for educators and policy makers who are considering the adoption of social software tools in learning and teaching are analysed. The paper consolidates a variety of literature sources from academic publications, recent reports on social software (2007‐2009), and commentaries and views on social software within the social media itself (blogs, wikis, YouTube).

Free and open-source software (FOSS) has been used worldwide because of the advantages of user control, cost-saving, flexibility, openness, freedom, more security and better stability. The purpose of this study is to explore the status quo of educational application of FOSS and the trends from international perspectives and its implications for higher education in Hong Kong.

The method of cluster analysis was used in this study. The Web of Science database was used as the data source and all relevant literature for the year 2010–2020 on the theme of “FOSS” was collected for analysis. The information visualization software CiteSpace was used for citation visualization analysis, revealing the research results of FOSS worldwide, including hot spots and development trends.

This paper found that FOSS has become an important research area and is playing an important role in the reform and development of education. Meanwhile, the development and application of FOSS have regional imbalances and strong differentiation, including the educational sector. The paper also found that although FOSS has entered the stage of interdisciplinary development, the research and development of FOSS in the field of education is insufficient, which poses a huge challenge to decision-makers, teachers and students.

Implications for higher education in Hong Kong including: attach importance to and vigorously promote FOSS research and practice to benefit more teachers and students; teachers and students need to be trained for acquiring the awareness and skills of FOSS applications and formulate different strategies; the government should provide greater support to formulate and implement a short and middle-term development plan to facilitate the application of FOSS; and Hong Kong higher education institutions may strengthen exchanges and cooperation with counterparts around the world to jointly promote the development of FOSS. It is hoped that the findings will provide a reference for the study and application of FOSS in higher education in Hong Kong.

Examines the advantages of “shareware” as opposed to commercial software in the fields of dietetics and nutrition, categorizing these into: word processing; data storage and statistical analysis; multinational analysis; and educational. Gives useful hints to those contemplating their use.

MINITELNET NOW AVAILABLE IN THE US. Over a decade ago, the French government introduced Minitel, an electronic gateway to phone numbers, banking services, news digests, travel information, and other online resources. Included in the installation cost of a telephone (250 Francs or $42), more than 5 million of the 9‐inch Minitel monitors have been distributed, with users logging in more than 60 million hours online. At first blush, Minitel is an overwhelming success, generating revenues in excess of 800 million Francs ($136 million) per year. Minitel has already crossed the Channel and invaded the United Kingdom and earlier this year became available in the U.S. with telecommunications software for the IBM PC and the Apple Macintosh. What drives Minitel's popularity? Bold headlines in both France and abroad state that the allure of sex may be the answer.