e-Learning in Civil Engineering - Six Years of Experience at Graz University of Technology

At Graz University of Technology a lot of experience in the investigation of possibilities of using Multime-dia or Internet based applications in Higher Education has been gathered. Especially in the field of civil engineering we can look back to six years of practice in this field. In 2001 the project iVISiCE (interactive Visualizations in Civil Engineering) was started. A great number of web based animations, visualisations and interactive learning objects have been developed for visualisation and simulation of ba-sic structural concrete relations. During the last two years the buzzword Web 2.0 shocked the traditional e-Learning World. The Internet got more inter-active and usable for end-users. Phrases like “user-generated-content” and “give-and-take-culture” pervade our daily life. From this point of view the Institute of Building Informatics decided to teach using these new tools in order to gather experiences and to play a kind of pioneering role in this field. Since winter 2005 a Wiki is used to support the main lectures of the institute. Students wrote articles themselves and collaborated in the process of learning a pro-gramming language. Finally, since this semester Podcasting has started. This means that each lecture is recorded and provided to the students in various file formats. The paper gives an overview about all activities within the last six years. Beginning with animations and ending with the use of Web 2.0 applications, like Wikis or Podcasts, we have always tried to ensure high quality of our education. In the summary it is clear that these small, but regular innovations definitely helped to improve the lectures in the field of civil engineering.