MICHAEL SHERWOOD-SMITH, PhD, FICS, CEng MIEI was Head of the Department of Computer Science at University College Dublin. He currently works with the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) Foundation as a consultant. He worked for twenty years in data processing and management with interna- tional companies (Nestlé, W.R. Grace and Unilever) and has been a Project Director on European Commission research projects. His doctoral research was in the fi eld of evaluation of information systems and he is the author of books and several papers in this fi eld. He is a past Chairman of the Irish Computer Society.