Enabling Project-Based Learning in WBT Systems

It is our experience that many Web-based training (WBT) systems do not take into account the latest advancements in teaching or learning paradigms – they simply reflect Web technology. We believe that such a technical approach to building WBT systems has a number of drawbacks, since WBT systems are primarily about teaching and learning, rather than about technology. Thus, WBT systems should actually combine conventional and innovative tools compatible with the current Web technology to support well-known, well-tested techniques, and also to enable implementation of new and innovative teaching and learning paradigms in a Web-based environment. Therefore, we built a novel WBT system called WBTMaster as a Web-based platform supporting a wide range of different teaching and learning paradigms. In this paper we present a WBT-Master tool that implements the well-known and highly accepted project-based learning paradigm. Further, we present results when applying this tool to conduct a project-oriented software engineering course with more than 200 university students. Also, evaluation results in applying WBT-Master in a corporate environment are presented as well.