About the Author

Michael Coughlan is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Limerick, Ireland where he teaches e-business, legacy systems, and business oriented programming languages. He has been responsible for teaching COBOL to University of Limerick students since 1980.

Michael wrote the COBOL quick reference for the book Year 2000 in a Nutshell by Norman Shakespeare (O’Reilly, 1998), and he created the free online learning resource for COBOL at www.csis.ul.ie/COBOL. This resource is used by students and instructors all over the world, and notes from the website have been translated into a number of languages.

Taught by Cistercian monks in the Knockmealdown mountains of County Waterford, Michael received a B.A. (Mod) in History from Trinity College Dublin, a Graduate Diploma in Computing from the University of Limerick, and an M.Sc. in Information Technology from the University of Ulster.