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The use of structured literature review methods like bibliometric analysis is growing in the management fields, but there is limited knowledge on how they can be facilitated by technology. Hence, we conducted a broad overview of software tools, their roles, and limitations in structured (bibliometric) literature reviewing activities. Subsequently, we show that several software tools are freely available to aid in searching the literature, identifying/ extracting relevant publications, screening/assessing quality of the extracted data, and performing analyses to generate insights from the literature. However, their applications may be confronted with several challenges such as limited analytical and functional capabilities, inadequate technological skills of researchers, and the fact that the researcher's insights are still needed to generate compelling conclusions from the results produced by software tools. Consequently, we contribute toward advancing the methodologies for performing structured reviews by providing a comprehensive and updated overview of the knowledge base of key technological software tools and the conduct of structured or bibliometric literature reviews.

This study seeks to provide insightful information about web accessibility based on human judgment in one Asian country (i.e. South Korea) in comparison to the USA.

This study applies both the automated software tool and the human review of web content to measure website accessibility.

Overall accessibility errors found from the Korean government websites are approximately two times higher than those from the US government websites. The accessibility errors are found in virtually every non‐text information content group. Finally, results of the manual evaluation conducted by human experts show fewer accessibility errors than those found in the evaluation conducted by the automated software tool.

Because of the limited number of the websites evaluated and the automated software tools used in this study, the generalization of its findings may be inappropriate. However, the redundant accessibility errors identified by the automated software tools discussed in this study shall encourage research activities to improve these tools. Finally, a longitudinal study to identify effective mechanisms improving website accessibility and further studies on effects of cultural differences among countries on their website design would be useful.

The high accessibility errors found from Korean Websites may suggest the need for legal enforcement or other additional mechanisms in Korea to improve web accessibility among Korean organizations.

The results of this study can help experts efforts to implement policies to priovide equal internet opportunities for the elderly and the disabled.

Software tools are programs which perform simple functions and have simple interfaces. They can be easily put together to make complete systems; and their use for library automation represents a middle path between ‘off the shelf’ packaged software and software which is entirely coded in a programming language. After discussing software tools in connection with the UNIX operating system, this paper describes an experimental system for periodicals control. An analysis of the software is presented which indicates the benefits that stem from using software tools, and some figures on machine timing are given.

This paper aims to deal with the development of a software tool to simulate and study vehicle – road interaction (VRI) to quantify the forces induced and energy released from vehicles to the road pavement, in different vehicle motion scenarios, and the energy absorbed by the road surface, speed reducers or a specific energy harvester surface or device. The software tool also enables users to quantify the energetic efficiency of the process.

Existing software tools were analysed and its limitations were identified in terms of performing energetic analysis on the interaction between the vehicle and the road pavement elements, such as speed reducers or energy harvest devices. The software tool presented in this paper intends to overcome those limitations and precisely quantify the energy transfer.

Different vehicle models and VRI models were evaluated, allowing to conclude about each model precision: bicycle car model has a 60 per cent higher precision when compared with quarter-car model, and contact patch analysis model has a 67 per cent higher precision than single force analysis model. Also, a technical study was performed for different equipment surface shapes and displacements, concluding that these variables have a great influence on the energy released by the vehicle and on the energy harvested by the equipment surface.

The developed software tool allows to study VRI with a higher precision than existing tools, especially when energetic analyses are performed and when speed reduction or energy harvesting devices are applied on the pavement.

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).

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the results of an empirical investigation of the effective use of social software in further and higher education. The aims of the research are to: identify situations where social software tools had been employed in learning and teaching; elicit the experiences of the staff and students; and to draw out the benefits, challenges and issues (and their resolutions) associated with the use of social software.

In the empirical study, data from 26 initiatives, where social software tools have been employed, were collected, analysed and synthesised. A case study methodology was followed and both educators and students were interviewed to find out what they had done, how well it had worked, and what they had learned from the experiences.

This study provides insights about the 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.

The data analysis in this project has been qualitative. In future research, it would be useful to obtain quantitative evidence relating to the effectiveness of the use of social software. Such evidence would be of considerable assistance to institutional policy makers. The case studies in the project are snapshots of the current situation. It would be useful to carry out longitudinal studies over a period of time to investigate the sustainability of the individual initiatives.

It is hoped that the lessons captured in this paper will inform the learning and teaching strategies in higher and further education – specifically, assisting the institutions and educators who are considering the use of social software, or more generally, people or organisations undertaking technology‐enabled learning and teaching initiatives.

The published research so far has tended to focus on the use of forums, blogs and wikis, rather than extending to encompass other social software. Furthermore, the literature discusses experiences of individual educators and with a small set of students. The project reported in this paper examined data from 26 initiatives from a varierty of institutions, involving a wide range of social software tools, and in diverse contexts.

This paper aims to introduce, conceptualize and demonstrate a software tool named “Blockchain-Enabled Beer Game” (BEBG) for familiarizing the application of blockchain in inventory management, one of the critical components of supply chain management.

This paper follows a methodology of design-based research and develops a software tool in the form of a role-play simulation game. The proposed game adopts the theme of the traditional beer distribution game to establish a blockchain-enabled scenario for inventory management. A decentralized application (DApp) was prototyped on the Ethereum blockchain to demonstrate the tool.

The proposed software tool is effective in teaching and training the application of blockchain in inventory management. While interacting with BEBG, players witness how each inventory-related transaction gets secured with blockchain. A basic understanding of the fundamentals of blockchain is a prerequisite for using this tool. BEBG is not self-explanatory, and an instructor is essential for assisting the players.

Software tools currently available to familiarize with blockchain technology cannot convey its practical applications. Addressing this gap, BEBG allows the users to experience the application of blockchain in inventory management. Academic institutions, especially business schools, can use this tool to teach the students the practical use of blockchain technology. Industries can adopt BEBG for training the employees. The research community can devise BEBG to infer the impact of blockchain in supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to present ReProTool Version 2.0, a software tool that is used for the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) and the Bologna Process re‐engineering of academic programmes. The tool is the result of an 18 months project (February 2012‐July 2013) project, co‐financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Cyprus through the Research Promotion Foundation (www.reprotool.com).

The project entails the development and pilot use of ReProTool, a software tool that will support the design and development of university academic programmes using Learning Outcomes and the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) of the Bologna Process. The paper briefly describes the various stages of the project: Identification of User and System Requirements; System Analysis and Design; and Software Development. More specifically, it presents the results of on‐line questionnaires distributed to students and academics aiming at extracting the user requirements of the system. Based on these results and the results from interviews with experts and literature review, the system was designed. The underlying database is thus presented. The implementation details and the system architecture are also presented. Various screenshots of the system are used in the paper to exemplify the functionality of the tool.

The ECTS process and the supporting methodologies are quite complex and complicated, requiring the involvement of all education stakeholders (faculty, students, industry, etc.). The lack of a software tool to support the available methodologies and the involved stakeholders makes the process even more complex, laborious and difficult to complete. The authors are currently developing such tool. The availability of a free software tool will therefore simplify the process and help all Universities in their effort to obtain the ECTS label and help them towards the full implementation of the Bologna Process directives.

The paper presents the software tool ReProTool, which will provide support to the Tuning Methodology, also taking into consideration state‐of‐the‐art developments in the area of ECTS, Learning outcomes and the European Qualifications Framework and will thus make it possible for Universities to re‐engineer their academic programs in line with ECTS, achieve ECTS certification/label and fulfill the Bologna Process directives. This will result in the improvement of academic programs offered by Universities and the creation of compatible programmes across Europe, so that students and faculty will be able to utilize the Erasmus and other mobility programmes and participate in exchange visits. Without the use of such a tool, the application of such methodologies is really a non‐trivial, error‐prone task. This is a very demanding task and very few Universities in Europe have managed to obtain the ECTS label.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new software tool to support design for quality (DfQ) in the electronics manufacturing sector where quality and reliability are critical.

An integrated modelling framework that enables complete and realistic representations of manufacturing systems is proposed. A software tool, developed based on this framework, offers two modules to support DfQ: simulation and root cause analysis. This paper focuses on the latter.

Integrated models enable tracing back effects to their root causes. Software tools based on these, kind of models can provide support in finding and eliminating the cause of a particular effect. This capability can be used to perform DfQ in an effective and accurate way.

The approach proposed strongly depends on the quality models within the integrated modelling framework. The models currently available are little and simplified. Future work includes the enrichment of the software by developing and more quality models.

The adoption of the proposed approach in an industrial context requires formalised information to fulfil the data required by the integrated modelling framework.

The main contribution of the paper is the integrated modelling framework definition and its implementation in the form of a software tool. The adoption of this tool in printed circuit assembly companies can support the solution of real quality problems and consequently, help to optimise manufacturing systems in the domain.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a perspective of computer‐aided material and process selection (MPS) software tools for product development purpose and present a practical approach for manufacturers and other decision makers involved in MPS.

A multi‐criteria deductive approach for MPS is applied to a case study by taking into account the technical performances and environmental constraints. A resource‐based cost modeling is also deployed to examine the implication of selected material and process on overall product cost.

The paper demonstrates the capabilities and shortcoming of existing computerized MPS software tools in assisting product managers and designers for handling the growing volume of material/process data.

Applying computer‐aided MPS approach to complex shape products with multiple features is not a straightforward task and requires further development in existing MPS software tools.

Computer‐aided MPS systems can assist decision makers in solving many material/process selection problems by following a systematic process.

Given today's rapid technological changes, it is important for decision makers to understand the capabilities of computer‐aided MPS software tools in handling a growing volume of data. Very limited research has been done to explore the capabilities and limitations of existing material/process selectors. It is the first in the literature that demonstrates the application of multi‐criteria deductive approach in MPS using a software tool.