Book excerpt: 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.