Abstract
Increasing the competitiveness in high-level education is a significant approach of Distributed Learning Environments (DLEs). Providing, a collaborative, time and location-independent, and interactive mean of learning is essential for high-education institutions and each institute aiming at high-level, student-centred education delivery needs to develop a DLE build-up strategy. However, distributed learning needs not to be regarded as a supplement of traditional classroom learning, but as its extension.
A former project - ViReC (Virtual Resource Center) aims at setting up a qualitative learning environment in an academic European network. ViReC Web portal targets regular students from European universities, students with locomotors handicap, individuals who seek retraining, companies who seek personnel retraining, companies specialized in personnel retraining, academic staff and teachers/trainers acting in the public/private sector. Not only, the portal represents the access point to a large collection of resources: textbook materials, tutorials and exercises, but the novelty of the DLE system consists in the synchronous section which provides facilities for remote live presentations and experiments based on real equipment that is accessible, configurable and testable over the Internet.
ViReC serves as basis of deducting helpful information on the development of DLEs. A careful analysis of ViReC can provide insights into three directions: user (namely, the student), instructor and administration. Moreover, outcomes of ViReC permit dissemination on issues as distance learning, online courses and instructional materials, interactive multimedia textbooks, access to remote systems, synchronous and asynchronous group communications, experiential learning, course and content management, online testing and assessment.ViReC covers subjects in Computer Engineering; however, its applicability can be easily extended to any area of study. |