ACES - the Automated Corporate Evaluation Service - was designed to provide corporate customers with a fully automated system to help them assess the impact of courses at the UK Open University. It is a web-based system, and provides a secure server where questionnaires can be placed for access through the Internet. 360 degree questionnaires are used to evaluate how students put their learning into practice in the workplace. ACES then combines and analyses this data, embedding results into word-processed and graphical reports for use by corporate clients.

Many organizations are using email discussion groups to bring their staff together, allowing them to share problems and expertise throughout their organisation. Unfortunately, email software is limited in helping people find relevant messages: search is usually limited to keywords, and even this search is hampered by email conventions such as quoting messages in replies.

Assessment is central to learning, yet often in awkward tension with constructivist pedagogy. It is a source of frequently negative emotions, which actively inhibit the reflection needed to make it an effective part of the learning process. By casting assessment as a fictitious place - 'Assessment Island' - populated by a range of characters, objects, and landmarks that illustrate the many influences on the process, this 3D game-like environment can reveal sources of insight into assessment, both through telling stories with other learners, and through dialogue with representations of other aspects of the process.

Hank is a cognitive modelling language specifically designed to help novices build models of simple psychological theories. It had a few distinctive features. First, it was specifically designed to be used on paper as well as on a computer (to support learners working at home), and was designed to work well in groups as well as for individuals.

• Download the Hank installer

Meet-O-Matic is a meeting planning application with a difference you can experience for yourself in 2 minutes, with no registration ever required. Most workgroup software (groupware) to deal with schedule, diary, timetable and meeting constraint problems lies unused after the first few meeting scheduling experiences.

Open Comment is an open source feedback tool, designed to plug into the Moodle open source virtual learning environment. It consists of a set of interlocking components, including:

• A feedback engine
• A Moodle question type
• A graphical interface to test questions

You can test the graphical interface using the following URL, which provides a Java web start (JNLP) file. If you have a reasonably modern Java installed, you should simply be able to double-click this to install and run the program.

Open Mentor is a learning support tool for tutors in further and higher education, which assists them through analysing and then providing reflective comments on their assessment and feedback of student assignments and coursework.