Using the internet to improve university education: problem-oriented web-based learning with MUNICS

A principled approach to the design of problem-oriented, web-based learning at the university level is presented. The principles include providing authentic contexts with multimedia, supporting collaborative knowledge construction, making thinking visible with dynamic visualisation, quick access to content resources via ICT, and flexible support by tele-tutoring. These principles are used in the MUNICS learning environment, which is designed to help students of computer science to apply their conceptual knowledge from the lectures to complex real-world problems. For example, students may model the information flow in an educational organization with a dynamic visualisation tool. A main finding in the formative evaluation study with the prototype is the ignorance of the students concerning the additional content resources. This finding is discussed on the background of the well-known phenomenon of insufficient use of help systems in software applications.