Web-based learning involves the use of appropriate technology with the corresponding pedagogical approaches managed in the context of today's educational setting. This book features an interesting range of leading-edge works from researchers and practitioners who have applied current web technology to various learning endeavours.The volume contains a selection of peer-reviewed papers by many of the field's expert researchers and practitioners. It is an excellent resource for students, researchers and practitioners involved in web-based learning or e-learning.

nd The 2 International Conference on Web-Based Learning (ICWL 2003) took place in Melbourne, Australia. ICWL 2003 followed the tradition of the successful ICWL 2002 held in Hong Kong and aimed at providing an in-depth study of the technical and pedago- cal issues, as well as incorporating management issues of Web-based learning. Additionally, there was a focus on issues of interest to the learner, o?ering the optimal Web based learning environment to achieve high academic results. - akin University organized this conference in conjunction with the Hong Kong WebSociety,toprovideaforumwhichgatherededucators,researchers,techno- gists and implementers of Web-based learning from around the world to discuss, collaborate and advance all relevant issues pertaining to this area of research. The main focus of ICWL 2003 was on the most critical areas of Web-based learning, in particular, Web-based learning environments, virtual universities, pedagogical issues related to Web-based learning, multimedia-based e-learning, interactive e-learning systems, intelligence in on-line education, e-learning so- tions, CSCL, and authoring tools for e-learning. In total, the conference received 118 papers from researchers and practitioners from 13 countries. Each paper was reviewed by at least three internationally renowned referees. Papers were ri- rously examined and selected based on their originality, signi?cance, correctness, relevance, and clarity of presentation. Among the high-quality submissions, 50 papers were accepted and included in the proceedings. Later, the proceedings editors will recommend that some high-quality papers from the conference be published in a special issue of an international journal.

With the rapid development of Web-based learning, a new set of learning - vironments including virtual classrooms, virtual laboratories and virtual u- versities are being developed. These new learning environments, however, also introduce new problems that need to be addressed. On the technical side, there is a need for the deployment of e?ective technologies on Web-based education. On the learning side, the cyber mode of learning is very di?erent from tra- tional classroom-based learning. On the management side, the establishment of a cyber university imposes very di?erent requirements for the set up. ICWL 2005, the 4th International Conference on Web-Based Learning, was held in Hong Kong, China from July 31 to August 3, 2005, as a continued - tempttoaddressmanyoftheabove-mentionedissues.Followingthegreatsuccess of ICWL 2002 (Hong Kong, China), ICWL 2003 (Australia), and ICWL 2004 (China), ICWL 2005 aimed at presenting progresson the technical, pedagogical, as well as management issues of Web-based learning. The conference featured a comprehensive program, including a number of tutorials, two keynote talks, a main track containing regular as well as short paper presentations, and an application track. We received a total of 99 submissions from all over the world. The Program Committee selected 33 papers as regular papers for presentation in the main track, an acceptance rate of about 33%. Due to the high-quality submissions, the Committee decided to further accept 9 papers as short papers for presentation.