2008 marks a significant milestone for Watsonia Publishing – we’ve been writing and publishing MYOB training manuals now for 15 years. We’ve produced manuals for more than 15 Australian versions of MYOB, from version 3 through to the latest version 18. We’ve also developed courseware for the Canadian and US versions of MYOB.

We wrote our first MYOB courseware only two years after MYOB began in Australia. It was written at the request of Joan Taylor who in those days managed the Community Education department of Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne. We’d never had imagined that her request and our punt on taking a chance on writing courseware for a little known software product (as it was then), would lead to such a long-term and continuing project.

In those days the MYOB product was still developed by Best!Ware in Rochester, New York, for the American market and adapted both in the US and in other countries for local markets. In Australia MYOB was re-badged, re-worked, and distributed by Data-Tech Software.

Our company policy has always been to keep a fierce independence from software vendors which allows us to write honest courseware without being commercially fettered. So, as a courtesy, we sent a copy of our first publication to Data-Tech who were thrilled that an Australian company was helping support their product with aftermarket courseware.

In 1996 Data-Tech acquired the intellectual rights to the MYOB name, and from that point on MYOB became a truly Australian product. But the big break came with the introduction of the GST in 2000. MYOB then prospered as small businesses finally decided to bite the bullet and introduce computerised book-keeping into their businesses. Data-Tech did so well that it adopted the MYOB name for its organisation and publicly listed in 1999. The rest, as they say, is history.

We’re proud to say that we’ve been able to keep up with the updated releases, including the incremental ones, ever since we began writing and publishing for Version 3 of MYOB. And each new version of our courseware gets as much attention as the originals did way back in 1993. Every page is read, every screen is completely re-captured and based on the latest software version, dates and figures are updated, and the exercises are reworked. Also, new features of the software are added to the courseware too if required.

Today we offer our MYOB publications in two formats - Master and InFocus. Master format is our traditional format where topics flow across pages and the print is slightly larger. InFocus is our newer format where each page hosts a new topic. InFocus publications are smaller than Master series formats and provide a more economical alternative for budget conscious clients.

Like the MYOB software itself, our courseware has undergone many innovations and changes over the years. This trend will definitely not abate with Version 18. Our plans here are to progress the InFocus format to the payroll and advanced publications, introduce teacher guides complete with lesson plans and timings, provide test banks, and create several new curriculum specific MYOB publications.

Like MYOB we’ve been around for a while, introduced a lot of innovation, and want to provide you with the best quality product at a reasonable cost. We’re just wondering what we’ll be writing about in the 30^th anniversary edition of our courseware!

Watsonia Publishing is pleased to be associated with Box Hill Institute of TAFE as the business partner and sponsor of  wp: Publishing on Elgar, a virtual enterprise. By operating this virtual business students learn about how business really works and how decisions are made as part of their studies for Certificates II, III and IV in Office Administration.

wp: Publishing on Elgar is a simulated business selling training manuals that is set up and run by students as part of their study program and they conduct business with other Virtual Enterprises in a simulated market economy on a local, national or international basis. Students work as business people, operating their own business and making decisions that lead the business into profitable (or not-so-profitable) outcomes.

As a business partner we see this as a welcome opportunity for developing the community partnership between business and education.

Watsonia Publishing is proud to have been nominated as a finalist in the UK Institute of Training Awards in the category External Training Project of the Year. The company was nominated from 22 entries for its innovative Microsoft Office upgrade training project conducted for the world renowned London School of Economics.

The UK Institute of IT Training is the world's first professional body for IT training professionals and the leading authority in the UK and Europe on IT training and development. Its annual awards recognise outstanding examples of high standards, best practice, innovation and excellence with IT training.

The External Training Project of the Year award is presented to the company that has undertaken a major training project for a client that is innovative in concept and has produced demonstrable performance improvement.

Watsonia Publishing provided London School of Economics with its Microsoft Office courseware and its course production and customisation tools, as part of a Microsoft Office software migration and training programme carried out during 2007. The joint submission explains how London School of Economics is using the courseware to deliver a broad portfolio of courses, tailored to the needs of staff and students alike.

"This has been an ambitious, challenging and very rewarding project to support almost 10,000 LSE staff and students through a major Microsoft Office software migration. This required careful planning and synchronisation between the various groups of users, the technical and IT training teams and ourselves as the external supplier" said David Kelly, Managing Director of Watsonia Publishing UK.

"LSE's IT training team had an extremely tight timeframe to be fully ready for the migration; this included the mapping and customising of nearly forty different Microsoft Office training courses, and the publication of challenge quizzes, practice exercises and other supporting resources from WP for use on their intranet."

David pointed to the project as a model example in the IT training sector of how to get software upgrade projects right: "Together with the LSE IT training team, we made sure that this ambitious project ran smoothly, receiving significant performance improvements and a very positive impact with the users. WP UK is thrilled to have been short listed with LSE in the Institute of IT Training's awards.

These IT textbooks provide the theoretical background needed to successfully pass industry endorsed certifications and provide students and teachers with an effective approach to mastering challenging concepts. The texts are with supplemented application-based labs, exercises and quizzes that are designed to help the student thoroughly understand the content. Each book comes with a CD-ROM that features interactive movies to support the written explanations.

Titles include:

ART301                 Aries PC Maintenance & Repair: Hardware 4^th Ed
ART302                 Aries PC Maintenance & Repair: Operating Systems 4^th Ed
ART005                 Aries Networking Essentials 3^rd Ed
ART006                 Aries Server Essentials 2^nd Ed
ART007                 Aries Wireless Essentials 1^st Ed
ART008                 Aries Linux Essentials 2^nd Ed

Watsonia Publishing introduces a new series of titles for Certificates I,II & III including Certificate III in Business (Medical Administration for the Business Services training package. Written by Lesley Graham and now available from Watsonia Publishing these quality titles are ideal for use with students entering the workforce for the first time or for people returning to work  after an extended absence. All titles feature content which is clearly written using straightforward descriptions and examples. Each chapter concludes with a series of questions for the student to answer that assesses their understanding of the chapter.

Lesley has written a series of specialist titles for Medical Administration and the combined content of the three titles Medical Office Guidebook, Medical Terminology Workbook and Medical Typist Guidebook are sufficient to meet the requirements of Certificate III in Business (Medical Administration).

To learn more about these new titles, click here.

Lesley Graham has been training students in Medical Administration for over 15 years and since 1999 she has specialised in the provision and development of distance learning resources and her books certainly demonstrate the benefit of her accumulated experience.

New for 2007 Watsonia Publishing has released a range of competency specific Learning Guides and Trainer Resources covering the individual competencies in Certificate I in IT. The Learning Guides based on Microsoft Office 2003 include:

INF260   ICAU1129A Operate a Word Processing Application

INF261   ICAU1128A Operate a Personal Computer

INF263   ICAU1130A Operate a Spreadsheet Application

INF264   ICAU1131A Operate a Database Application

INF265   ICAU1132A Operate a Presentation Package

The Learning Guides are fully supported with a range of teacher/trainer resources to help with preparation and assessment. Available to the RTO/school when Learning Guides are purchased the support material includes:

  - assessement tasks, linked to the chapters in the Learning Guide
  - final assessment task, a complete integrated assignment that covers all
    aspects of the competency using a real-life scenario
  - test bank, over 200 multiple choice and short answers questions.

All these materials are supplied on CD and can be edited to suit your specific training requirements.

A comprehensive mapping document of the competency to the Learning Guide is supplied which allows cross-referencing of the competency elements against the Learning Guide content.

Not just another courseware rewrite -

Both Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 are totally new products complete with new interfaces, new jargon and new ways of doing things. At Watsonia Publishing we've been developing courseware since the personal computer arrived in the 1980's and we've seen many changes since then.

With this latest release we are completely rewriting our courseware to take into account the evolving nature of computer applications and the maturing of computer users. Our new range of courseware for Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 will soon be available, while we may use the beta versions for our own training all our courseware is written using the commercially available versions.

If you would like to read more about how we are developing our courseware for Vista and Office 2007 - click here

As you'd appreciate with over 1,000 products a lot of work has gone into uploading product information to this web site. Basically, we've tried to make things as easy as possible by placing all product information in one easy-to-find location - our catalogue.

For example, let's say you want an outline for our brand new MYOB Version 13 manual. The easiest way to find this is to:

1. Type MYOB into the 'Catalogue Search' box at the top right of the screen

2. Click on the red Go button and all of our products with MYOB in the title will be listed - the PDF icon next to the title name indicates that there is a downloadable outline for the item

3. Simply click on the icon to view the outline on screen.

Hey, and there's more. If you click on the title you will be taken to the Product Information page where you can see more specific details about the title or product, download student files, and even place an order! This is only phase one of our massive web site redevelopment project - enhancements will be added to our products area on a regular basis so don't forget to check back from time to time to see what's new!

Sometimes change can be annoying, particularly if you are used to doing things a certain way. The layout of our new website is different, which means the stages you follow to find what you require have changed. To help you work through this change we have listed below the four search options available within this site to help you find a particular product, just select the option that suits your needs best.

1. Option one allows you to view the catalogue in its entirety. Simply go to the ‘Products and Services page and click on the link ‘Browse the Entire Catalogue’. This will allow you to examine all current titles and products sold by Watsonia Publishing.  

2. Option two allows you to search by application key word. You simply type the key word you have chosen into the ‘Catalogue Search’ box that is located in the top right hand corner of every page within the website. This search will locate all topics that are associated with that application. For example; type in MYOB and you will be able to view every title, in every product range that is associated with MYOB.

3. Option three allows you to search by type and category. Simply follow the required links under the ‘Catalogue Quick Find’ heading on the ‘Products and Services’ page. This search helps you locate products within a particular category. For example; if you would like to view all titles available within the Business Services Training Package then you would click on the link ‘Curriculum Based Titles’. Alternatively if you wanted to locate all titles in our Web Development range then you would click on ‘Developer/Programming Titles’.

4. Option four allows you to narrow your search down to specific type, range, application and suites. Simply use the ‘drop down’ boxes on the ‘Products and Services’ page, to type in either all or a combination of the options available to narrow the your search as you require. For example; if you were looking for a curriculum based (type) Microsoft Word 2000 manual (application) written in Office 2000 (suite) for our In Focus range (range) then you would use the drop down boxes available to fill out the above information.

If you are still having problems finding the product you need, contact our Customer Service Department on +61 (0)3 9851 4000 for assistance.