Open Access

Helmut Vieritz, Bodo von der Heiden, Hans-Christian Schmitz, Carsten Ullrich, Ruimin Shen, Kerstin Borau, Erik Isaksson, Matthias Palmér, Thomas Lind, Mikael Laaksoharju

• Formal learning in higher education creates its own challenges for didactics, teaching, technology, and organization. The growing need for well-educated employees requires new ideas and tools in education. Within the ROLE project, three personal learning environments based on ROLE technology were used to accompany “traditional” teaching and learning activities at universities. The test beds at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany, the School of Continuing Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, and the Uppsala University in Sweden differ in learning culture, the number of students and their individual background, synchronous versus distant learning, etc. The big range of test beds underlines the flexibility of ROLE technology. For each test bed, the learning scenario is presented and analyzed as well as the particular ROLE learning environment. The evaluation methods are described and the research results discussed in detail. The learned lessons provide an easy way to benefit from the ROLE research work which demonstrates the potential for new ideas based on flexible e-learning concepts and tools in “traditional” education.