The Way Cool Software Reviews Project was first announced at NAWeb '95 (October, 1995). It is a joint venture of the A. J. Pappanikou Center Technology Lab of the University of Connecticut, and Chatback International of the United Kingdom.
Way Cool Software Reviews began as a listserv at the University of Connecticut in September of 1995. Today the Way Cool Listserv has over 275 subscribers representing teachers, parents, publishers, and others from all over the United States plus Canada, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
Listservs provide a great opportunity to interact on a particular topic. On the Way Cool Listserv, subscribers software issues and ask questions about the project and the software reviews. All reviews are first published on the listserv so that people can add comments before we publish the review on the World Wide Web.
Fortunately, publishers are joining the listserv. This interaction between software publishers and software users is a unique feature of the Way Cool Software Reviews Project. Fortunately, many publishers are becoming interested in this interaction.
The listserv format also has archives of past messages, so subscribers can go back to find any of the reviews that have been published on the listserv. Although the listserv allows such a facility, the World Wide Web format is far more user friendly in this regard.
The World Wide Web is a wonderful way to store and download information. It's graphic, attractive, user friendly, and more. The basic page of the Way Cool Software Reviews World Wide Web site was established March 16, 1996. It provides a link to all of the software reviews, information on the Way Cool Project including a copy of the evaluation form most of the reviews follow, and links to related projects.
The software page of the Way Cool WWW site provides a link to each of the 17 reviews of commercial software and three reviews of shareware (as of 8/1/96). Within many of the reviews are links to the publisher's home page or to a site to download the freeware or shareware. As of August 1, 1996, the Way Cool Home Page had been hit 2,200 times. We were pleased to hear that the Way Cool Software Reviews home page was selected as an Editor's Choice Site for the summer issue of the Internet journal for classroom teachers - Classroom Connect.
