Volume 13, Issue 1, 1999

WinEcon 5.0 Released

Simon Price

TLTP Economics Consortium

Blackwell Publishers are now shipping version 5.0 of "Interactive Economics: the WinEcon software". Existing customers will receive a free upgrade when they renew their annual license or, the software can be downloaded now from http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/winecon. This new version is available in two configurations:

• WinEcon 5.0 Customisable (site license, networkable)
  The full WinEcon package including the WinEcon Lecturer customisation and course management system.
  
  
• WinEcon 5.0 Institutional (site license, networkable)
  The full WinEcon package but excluding both WinEcon Lecturer and the examination questions. Self-assessment questions are still included.
  

UK Higher Education institutions receive the full Customisable version but may choose to download the Institutional version should they not wish to customise the software or use course management features. In such cases, using the Institutional version will avoid the students having to log in using the infamous "student" username and password; there is little point in getting students to log in if you are not using the course management system or exams. That said, it is actually a simple matter to switch off the log-in feature on the full Customisable version!

The student version on CD-ROM, called "Interactive Economics: the WinEcon software" and the workbook "Interactive Economics: the WinEcon workbook" continue to be available through bookshops and can be ordered over the Internet via http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk.

Also featuring version 5.0 software is a new Blackwell publication, affectionately known as MathEcon but officially called "Mathematics for Economics and Business: selections from WinEcon". This is a text book which includes a CD-ROM containing a customised course built around selected topics from WinEcon and a collection of self-assessment questions in Adobe Acrobat format. MathEcon is reviewed in this issue of CHEER. (See also the late breaking news).

What's New in 5.0?

WinEcon 5.0 features literally hundreds of corrections to the courseware content and numerous bug fixes. In terms of features, the new version has the following:

• re-indexed to up-to-date texts
  See below.
  
  
• new references pop-up
  The most confusing element of the old student shell were the curious codes used for references/indexing to text books. These have now been replaced with a more human-readable format and improved user interface.
  
  
• print buttons on pop-up tools
  The glossary, references and notepad now allow their text to be sent to the printer. This is particularly useful for the references to texts.
  
  
• biz/ed Web search
  A button has been added to the glossary pop-up to search for a term using the biz/ed extended Web search service (figs. 1 and 2). To find out about biz/ed, see http://www.bized.ac.uk
  
  
• new installation program which self-adapts for either Windows 3.x or 95/98/NT. UninstallShield is also included to simplify the removal of the software.
  

WinEcon 5.0 Re-Indexing

The new version is indexed to the most up-to-date editions of the four leading introductory economics texts.

• Economics (fifth edition)
  Begg, David K. H. and Fisher, Stanley and Dornbusch, Rudiger
  McGraw-Hill
  
  
• An Introduction to Positive Economics (eight edition)
  Lipsey, Richard G. and Chrystal, K. Alec
  Oxford University Press
  
  
• Economics (third edition)
  Parkin, Michael and Powell, Melanie and Matthews, Kent
  Addison-Wesley
  
  
• Economics (third edition)
  Sloman, John
  Prentice-Hall
  

In addition, version 5.0 topic names, chapter and section numbers continue to remain valid for the WinEcon Workbook and if you have produced student handouts yourself, these will not need amending.

Late Breaking News

An updated version (WinEcon 5.1) of both the Customisable and Institutional versions of WinEcon can now be downloaded by existing customers from http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/winecon. This new version includes the Mathematics for Economics and Business course developed for the text of the same name but usable in its own right. It also includes references to this text along the same lines as the indexing to the four leading economics texts. Finally, a problem which arose with WinEcon Lecturer on Windows NT4 has also been solved and a few additional corrections to the maths courseware have been spotted and fixed.

Figure 1. Search biz/ed Web site from the WinEcon glossary

Figure 2. Result of search of biz/ed Web site for "Keynes" from the WinEcon glossary

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