Browse Prev
ISEDJ 3(38)

Browse Next
ISEDJ 3(40)

Volume 3, Number 39

August 9, 2005

12 pages 621 K bytes

Towards a WebCenter for Pedagogical Freeware Collaborative Review and Retrieval Eunhee Kim New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, New Jersey 07102 USA Julian Matthew Scher New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, New Jersey 07102 USA Murray Turoff New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, New Jersey 07102 USA

Abstract: A significant amount of freeware is accessible to students and faculty, from a variety of sources, and downloadable from a multitude of web-sites. Much of the freeware, often of equivalent quality to commercial off-the-shelf software, and many times unique and having no commercial equivalent, is underutilized by both educators and students, who generally are unaware of its availability. With constraints on their financial resources, students and faculty are faced with limits on the purchase of commercial software, and would significantly benefit if they were to have a single place they could visit to obtain relevant software which is legitimately free of commercial fees. Our objective for this effort is the design and development of a WebCenter which will provide a “one-stop shopping experience” for both students and faculty who are seeking to obtain relevant freeware for their pedagogical needs. The WebCenter will satisfy the diverse needs of a community of users, who will provide links to the software titles which they use or have developed, and who, using a simple Technology Acceptance Model-like evaluation scheme, will supply collaborative feedback on the freeware titles, share their experiences with them, and provide suggestions for their usage. A preliminary taxonomy of pedagogical freeware has been designed, to categorize the freeware titles, and provide for ready retrieval by the user community.

Keywords: freeware, WebCenter, pedagogical, collaborative, feedback, learning

Download this issue:   ISEDJ.3(39).Kim.pdf   (Adobe PDF, 12 pages, 621 K bytes)

Preview the contents:   Kim.v1.txt   (ASCII txt, 30 K bytes)