Journal of Hydroinformatics 3 (2001) 239-243

HydroWeb: "WWW based collaborative engineering in hydroscience"–a European education experiment in the Internet

Frank Molkenthin, K.-Peter Holz, Phillippe Belleudy, Janos Jozsa, Roland Price and Peter van der Veer

BTU Cottbus, Institut für Bauinformatik, Universitätsplatz 3–4, D-03044 Cottbus, Germany Tel.: +49 355 69 2262; Fax: +49 355 69 2188; E-mail: frank@bauinf.tu-cottbus.de

BTU Cottbus, Institut für Bauinformatik, Universitätsplatz 3–4, D-03044 Cottbus, Germany Tel.: +49 355 69 2262; Fax: +49 355 69 2188; E-mail: frank@bauinf.tu-cottbus.de

INP Grenoble, Laboratoire d'Etude des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement, BP 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France

Department of Hydraulic and Water Resources Engineering, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Muegyetem rkp. 3. Kmf. 8, H-1111 Budapest, Hungary

Hydroinformatics Section, IHE Delft, Westvest 7, PO Box 3015, 2601 DA Delft, The Netherlands

Civil Engineering Informatics Group, Delft University of Technology, Stevinweg 1, 2628 CN Delft, The Netherlands

Modern information and communication technology enables new technical solutions to support collaboration in engineering over distance. The application of Web based project platforms and collaboration methods requires new kinds of soft skills, knowledge and experience—a task for education and training in hydroinformatics. This technical note describes a pan-European education experiment, where students from five European universities have solved a given engineering task in distributed teams in the Internet. The collaboration was based on the principle of ‘information sharing’ using a Web based project platform. In this course the students acquired experience in interdisciplinary teamwork, net based project co-ordination and Web based reporting. They strengthened their social competence to collaborate in heterogeneous teams with different habits, nationalities, ages and educational backgrounds. The described experiment might be the basis for introducing Web based collaborative engineering in the regular course programme of water related curricula.

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