Welcome to the 20th issue of CHEER, and my first as Editor. We are all indebted to Guy Judge's excellent management and development of the journal during the past 20 years and I'm sure you'll agree he has left an excellent legacy upon which to build. CHEER is now a well-established, peer-reviewed journal with varied and interesting contributions from across the globe. Readership of the journal includes academics in the field of education, economics and business and is invaluable to those seeking to enhance the quality of learning and teaching throughout the Higher Education economics community around the world.
In this issue we have four interesting papers. In the first, Marianne Johnson and Denise Robson examine whether the use of personal response systems in lectures really does enhance students' engagement with the material presented in lectures and improve students' performance in subsequent assessments. The second paper, by Mike Rosser, describes a neat use of Excel to create individualised numerical assignments for students using the students' ID numbers to create randomised questions. I'm sure this will prove tremendously useful to teachers in a whole variety of different contexts. Given the widespread concerns over plagiarism, it is perhaps timely that our third paper, by Guy Judge, presents a case study of the experience of one department that has used Turnitin software for plagiarism detection and education.
The final paper, by Ayres and Sachania. responds to the growing interest in using various facets of social networking software to enhance student engagement, by explaining how blogs may be used to support economics teaching and research.
I hope these papers provide some inspiration to enhance your teaching and learning. And perhaps you would like to share your experiences with readers? Submissions can be made to CHEER through our on-line submission website. We accept articles, short notes, reports and reviews relating to the innovative use of information technology in economics education worldwide. All research articles undergo rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and, normally, refereeing by two anonymous referees. We would be delighted to receive your submissions to the journal.
Finally, to mark the 'coming of age' of the journal, we are planning a brand new look for the 21st issue, scheduled for publication in November 2009, and hope to feature key themes emerging from e-learning innovations presented at the DEE 2009 conference. Your inputs and ideas would be warmly welcomed.