To praise oneself is sure a fault; yet who That does aught good escapes it? If he feigns In those his words no whit, and all be true, The good for ever good remains. Book of Ill Humor West-Eastern Divan, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Translation by Edward Dowden) ICWL is an annual international conference series on Web-based learning that has so far been held in Asia, Australia and Europe. This series represents the cooperationofEuropeanandAsianresearcherstoadvancethe?eldofWeb-based learning. Numerous joint research papers and joint projects have emerged from the successful track record of ICWL. We have chosen a short quotation of the West-EasternDivan by JohannWolfgang von Goethe to expressthe spirit of the conference series establishing a stable bridge of researchbetween the continents. This year's conference location was a perfect symbol of this spirit. The 8th ICWL 2009 was held in Germany's westernmost located and truly European city Aachen. At the borders with Belgium and The Netherlands, it is within convenient reach of European centers like Brussels, Cologne, Paris and London. Initshistory,AachenwasthecapitalofCharlemagne,perhapsthe?rstEuropean emperor, and the place of coronation for the medieval Holy Roman Emperors following him. From its beginnings as a bathing resort of hot springs established sinceRomantimes,AachenwasalsoameetingpointoftheEastandtheWest.As acityofpilgrimage,knowledgefromtheEastfounditswayontheancientroutes and Western ideas traveled in the other direction. Exactly these old traditions are revitalized in papers collected in this proceedings volume.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Web-Based Learning, ICWL 2009, held in Aachen, Germany, in August 2009.
The 38 revised full papers and 14 short papers are presented together with three invited papers and were carefully reviewed and selected from 106 submissions. They deal with topics such as technology enhanced learning, web-based learning for oriental languages, mobile learning, social software and Web 2.0 for technology enhanced learning, learning resource deployment, organization and management, design, model and framework of E-learning systems, e-learning metadata and standards, educational gaming and multimedia storytelling for learning, as well as practice and experience sharing and pedagogical Issues.