Construction and Evaluation of a Blended Learning Platform for Higher Education

The design of a platform for blended learning is dependent on the educational and didactic theories. We discuss behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism and the impact of these theories on the elements of learning platforms. We describe the construction of a learning platform (of the Dept. of Information Science at the University of Dusseldorf. Germany), developed from the results of the didactic theories. The InfoCenter consists of elements of face-to-face teaching, of multimedia mediation (text books, slides, classic texts. interactive videos. FAQ lists, video glossaries), of Web 2.0 tools (wikis. weblogs. social networks, social bookmarking and folksonomies) and of the use of a learning management system (with learning units and tests). The platform was evaluated by its users (university students) by means of SERVQUAL. According to the evaluation, students are satisfied with the InfoCenter and are willing to use it for their exam preparation.