ePBL: Design and Implementation of a Problembased Learning Environment

Zeyad Ali Mohammad Samaka

Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Qatar University
Doha, Qatar
{zali, samaka.m}@qu.edu.qa
AbstractProblem-based Learning (PBL) has been utilized by
educators for almost half a century as a powerful and engaging
student-centered pedagogy. PBL has also been employed across a
wide range of disciplines and areas in education primarily medical,
engineering, and business.
The pedagogy that has been practiced for decades using the
traditional face-to-face activities largely benefited from all the
online technologies in empowering the learners in a non-classical
structure. Computer technologies were exploited by researcher and
educators at different capacities in order to add a value to PBL.
Online
implementations
ranged
from
using
basic
communication tools to building fully-fledged
systems and
websites. Several research projects succeeded in building
comprehensive, feature-rich, PBL-tailored learning environments.
On the other hand, some implementation were either partially
useful or inherently deficient.
Although many attempts achieved attractive results, they either
ended up unused or unsupported by the institution. The reasons in
many cases were purely technical and not related to the suitability
of the environment to the pedagogy.
This paper describes the need, design, and implementation of a
conceptual model to allow students to effectively collaborate using a
customizable framework for PBL courses.
In this paper, we present ePBL , an online environment for PBL
suitable for educational institutions at any level. We also share our
experiences and recommendations for developing similar pedagogyspecific solutions.
We also describe the details of implementing and testing of
ePBL at Qatar University. Analysis of students activities along with
their feedbacks is also detailed in this paper.
Keywords problem-based learning; e-learning; moodle;
collaborative learning;

I.

INTRODUCTION

Problem-based learning is a student-centered, self-directed,

inherently collaborative pedagogy[1]. Students learn by
working in groups through solving problems and reflecting
their experiences. The groups are indirectly supervised by a
facilitator.
This work has been supported under the grant ID NPRP 5 - 051 - 1 015
for the project entitled PLATE: Problem-based Learning Authoring and
Transformation Environment, 2012-2015, which is funded by the Qatar
National Research Fund (QNRF).

PBL educators have used the computer-mediated

technologies in delivering their courses as it would add a value
of the pedagogy. On the other hand, the dynamic and timely
nature of PBL curriculum demanded workflows and scenarios
that were not supported by the early online e-learning tools and
systems.
The collaborative nature of PBL incited several attempts to
exploit online technologies to extend the face-to-face group
work to anytime from anywhere learning style. The objective
was to eliminated the impact of geographic locations, time
conflicts, and weather conditions from delaying the progress of
the participants.
Although Barrows had some concerns with the early online
PBL applications, he stated that the results of a few of them
were attractive[4]. He recognized that the technology was
cumbersome and inappropriate for the authentic process of
PBL.
II.

REVIEW OF ONLINE IMPLEMENTATIONS

With the advent of the Internet, and the boom of online web
tools, both individual and collaborative, the learning process
and resources, became no longer limited to the traditional faceto-face activities in the classroom. Many mature web and
standalone implementations were developed to help educators
benefit from the rapidly improving technologies in their PBL
classes. In the following sections, we review several forms of
online PBL implementations at different capacities.
A. Basic Communication Tools
Early trials of using PBL in online environments were
primitively implemented due to the limitations of available
communication tools, Internet speeds, Internet penetration
rates, and online literacy.
Those shortcomings have negatively impacted both the
quality and extent of communications. Learners felt hindered
rather than empowered because of the drawbacks of the then
available inefficient technology.
Most implementations were limited to the use of one or
more communication tools or web sites. For instance, students
in [5] used only chat rooms and emails to collaboratively work
on the problem.

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In [6], a special Asynchronous Conferencing Tool (ACT),

was the only method used to support PBL approach. The
author acknowledged that the limitations of the discussionboard tool resulted in changing the teaching pedagogy from the
open-ended problem solving to a structured, debate-like
situation.

learners in an easy-to-navigate, scheduled phases, dashboardstyle web environment.

B. Scattered Tools Solutions

In many cases, the absence of a single comprehensive PBL
environment led to the use of scattered stand-alone
technologies and systems to meet all the requirements of the
pedagogy. Apparently, this setup raised issues like
interoperability, technical support, increased maintenance,
user-friendliness, and ease of use.

COMPSoft[14] [20]pushed the boundaries of distributed

PBL environments by providing a simulation space to medical
learners for collaborative and risk-free practice. The system
was initially developed using C# and .NET platforms. In a later
stages, the system employed the online multiplayer gaming
platform ENJEUX-S by extending it provide online simulation
rather than online gaming only.

dPBL[7] for instance, relied primarily on the features and

tools of the institutions WebCT. Besides actively utilizing the
forums and chat rooms of the LMS as meeting places, they
however, used an external website for meetings, and learning
events.

Developing systems like STEP, COMPSoft, and

CROCODILE with sophisticated tools like whiteboard and
web conferencing entails additional cost and time to budgets of
the research projects. Purchasing such advanced copy-righted
tools might limit the deployment of the solution to other
potential institutions. Using such web and standalone solutions
often require dedicated software developers to handle bugs and
frequent updates and upgrades in deployment platforms and
frameworks.

In [8], many synchronous and asynchronous

communications and collaborative tools are made available to
the students. They are, however, used from either dispersed
places or applications. For instance, MSN Messenger is used
for synchronous communications, a group blog for
asynchronous
communications
is
created
in
http://www.movabletype.org , and group members are
expected
to
collaboratively
edit
a
wiki
at
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki.
In POLARIS[9], a separate file-sharing space was added to
both synchronous and asynchronous communications in order
to stimulate motivation and collaboration between face-to-face
sessions.
C. Domain-specific Solutions
A few technologically-facilitated solutions were tailored for
particular disciplines, mostly for medical or business schools
[14]. Some implementations further narrowed down the
potential reusability of their systems by designing their PBL
tools to be applied in specific course as in [15].
This lack of customizability restricts the use and reuse of
fixed-setup PBL environments to learners and educators
from those schools exclusively preventing other majors, such
as Engineering, from an indispensable tool to apply PBL in the
curricula.
D. Inclusive Fully-fledged Systems
Building a comprehensive environment for PBL requires
extensive research, development, and testing efforts. WEB
solutions needed frequent development updates to incorporate
the almost periodic enhancements in web platforms and
frameworks.
STEP[16][17], was one of a few sophisticated fully-fledged
early web-based implementations.
Features such as
discussions board, whiteboards, resource repositories,
notebook, video library, and emails were all provided to

CROCODILE[18][19] was another

semi-inclusive
environment for PBL. Its main challenge was to virtually
integrate collaborative learning paradigms, protocols, and
workflows using an activity-oriented approach.

E. Solutions Outside the LMS

Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) are great
environments for PBL teachers and students to utilize the
effective tools of collaborative communications, resource
sharing, and communications. Instructors can easily manage
and distribute learning materials; both synchronous and
asynchronous communications are available in almost all
VLEs. Moreover, students are familiar with using them and
campus-wide technical support is usually available.
Current implementations of Learning Management Systems
(LMS) are designed mainly to facilitate lecture-based
education. Unfortunately none of them efficiently adapted to
the PBL context. Most LMSs provide many PBL-useful
features
such
as
grouping,
computer-mediated
communications, and assessments. However, since such tools
are designed with traditional pedagogies, not PBL, in mind,
they might end up either less-effective, unsupportive of
particular activities, or even lacking the compatibility with the
core PBL concepts and practices.
In certain cases, some essential PBL features were either
unsupported or entirely removed in the new versions of the
LMS. Blackboard, for instance, has removed wikis from the
standard product in version 9.0 resulting in depriving PBL
tutors and students from a practically-effective, collaborative
tool [21] [22].
A substantial disadvantage of solutions not incorporated in
the institutions LMS is the need to train instructors and
students on using the environment. The need to synchronize, or
copy, students and tutors records and credentials from the
institutions LMS to the PBL system imposes excessive work
that could discourage potential users.
Moreover, tools like emails, communications, blogs, group
discussions, multimedia archives, scheduling, voting, online

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repositories, assessments, and databases are already supported

by almost all learning environments. In addition to that, new
features and improvements to existing ones will routinely be
added to the LMS with every upgrade. These tools were found
to be having a potential in maximizing effectiveness in the
learning process by both learners and educators [23].
Developing a comprehensive independent PBL solutions
outside the LMS of the institution would involve huge
development efforts. Such systems are usually challenging to
build and maintain. A last resort would be developing a
separate system for the PBL core activities that are not
supported in the institutions LMS. Learners in this case will
be redirected to the main e-learning portal for all other
activities. Both scenarios are either costly to implement or
inadequate to have an authentic PBL atmosphere.
No evidence has been found that any of the fully-fledged
external systems is used by the originator institutions on a
regular basis. We also believe information technology
departments are generally reluctant to incorporating external
systems to the main e-learning portal. For example,
STELLAR[13], a mature PBL environment, is no longer
supported as a standalone system, researchers carried-out their
recent hybrid PBL courses using moodle[11] or other open
source systems.
III.

EPBL PLATFORM ALTERNATIVES

In the first phase of this project[12], the development team

built a web-based environment for PBL using C# and .NET.
The basic components of any e-learning system such as
registration, course management, authentication, email, groups,
and lessons were completed.
The team started discussing the need to purchase external
multimedia and communications tools rather than spending
months in development. They also realized the importance of
having a logging logic as it will be later needed for quantitative
and qualitative analysis.
A. Platform Selection
A decision was made to switch the development
environment to the open source LMS moodle[11] simply
because all of the previously completed modules are readily
available in any open-source, and free, LMS.
Moodle has become a very popular cost-free, open-source,
LMS for creating dynamic e-learning websites. Its ease of use,
installation, modularity, and customizability contributed to
making moodle the first choice for all levels of education, its
market penetration recently reached 54% [10].
A fortune of freely available modules played a significant
role in adapting moodle by both researchers and developers in
online education.
B. Modularity and Extensibility of moodle
Educators practicing non-classical pedagogies found
moodle to be the best environment for building learning
environments suitable for their teaching needs. Being an opensource platform, moodle is also considered a cost-effective

solution for benefitting from a wide variety of the community

contributed components. Reusable code modules and submodules substantially reduce the development efforts and
resources required to construct the a new e-learning
environment.
In moodle, developers can reuse the grading sub-module
from one activity, the assessment criteria code from another
one, and the file submission component from a third module,
either as it is and or with minor modifications. A module needs
to be written from scratch only if no other modules of similar
nature or context are available.
Educators relied on both the core modules available in the
standard version and on tools contributed by the moodle
community. Plugins contributed by the community are either
customized from of an existing feature or a totally new
characteristic that did not exist in the standard version.
C. PBL in moodle
The moodle community has contributed more than one
thousand different plug-ins of all types [11]. Many of the
available downloads are related to collaborative teaching
methodologies and activities. For instance, several excellent
contributions are available for project based learning at
difference scales.
Quite a few group-based activities are also exist for
collaborative learning modules like workshops, team
assignments, mini-projects, and course projects. Unfortunately,
none of the moodle core or community contributed learning
modules is designed for PBL.
Most of the modules and tools required for PBL are
available in moodle but in a scattered form or in an unfitting
context. A major challenge in the design of ePBL is to build a
comprehensive PBL environment in which all the required
functional components and tools are available in one container
where the protocols, scenarios, and workflows of the PBL
pedagogy are enforced.
D. A Course Format or an Activity?
Moodle allows developers to add new course formats to the
system. Several formats have already been contributed by the
community and some of them are now part of the standard
moodle download. For instance, the standard moodle version
allows administrators to create a course in LAMS, SCORM,
topics, weekly, project, or social formats.
The first thought was that we need a new course format for
PBL which only permits learning modules and workflows that
conform to the pedagogy. This approach was then found to fit
only in full-format PBL courses. Instructors delivering partial
and blended PBL activities in the classroom would not benefit
from the new format since learning modules belonging
traditional methodologies cannot be added to the course.
In order to be useful in both full-format and partial PBL
courses, the problem in ePBL is designed as a course activity
rather than a course format. The problem design, discussed
later, allows for both one week simple activity, and a 12-week
full-format PBL course.

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IV.

PROBLEM DESIGN IN EPBL

ePBL is embedded in moodle as an activity plug-in or

module. It imitates the PBL environment in the open source
course management system. The module design is entirely
built around the problem itself rather than just making the
problem one of the available activities.
Problem-related actions, resource-sharing, groups, dynamic
roles, monitoring , reporting, communications, and assessments
are intuitively inter-linked and built at the problem level with
grouping and roles in mind.
A. Problem Workspace Layout
A major design goal in ePBL was to provide the learners
with one container that encloses all the needed functional and
components, collaborative work areas, and communications
tools. User should not expected to browse outside the problem
space in order to accomplish any problem-related task of view
the details of the problem.

are also derived from the meticulous evaluation forms

described in [2].
The activities within the ePBL module are designed in
stages enforcing the pedagogy workflows. At any time,
students will only be able to work on the activities of a
particular learning issue. Once all the deliverables, feedbacks,
and subtasks are completed, students can then move to the next
stage within the current task.
ePBL is suitable for both partial and full-format PBL
courses. A problem with a few learning issues can be used for
partial PBL courses, another one with many tasks is
appropriate for full-format PBL semesters. In ePBL, the
problem is divided into timely planned one or more learning
issues as illustrated in Fig. 2, students work on the issues
sequentially one by one. Scheduling the learning issues is
administered by the instructor for better time management [2].

This design concept has been applied to all teacher-student

and student-student activities. This challenge was solved by
including all the functional components of the problem in one
tabbed panel as illustrated in Fig.1.

Figure 2. Problem workflows in ePBL.

Figure 1. Problem workspace layout in ePBL

B. Problem Settings
In ePBL, the instructor creates a problem by adding a
problem activity to the course. All general settings and
configurations are required before posting the problem to the
groups. The instructor details problem title, description, key
concepts, learning outcomes, grading scheme, number of
issues, maximum number of members per group, resources,
attachments, start and end dates, and notes to group members
and leaders.
The problem is given to groups in a separate mode in which
members of one group cannot see the activities of other groups
without tutors permission. Students are allowed to select their
groups before a deadline specified by the instructor; once
groups are formed they cannot be changed throughout the
course of the problem.
C. Problem Workflows
The workflows, group dynamics, and activity scenarios
adapted in ePBL are based on Donald Woodss work as
detailed in [3]. Assessment and peer-assessment for each stage

Each issue has three phases, goals, teaching, and

assessment. The problem ends when all the issues are
completed by the group. Fig. 3 shows a snapshot of the three
phases of a one-issue problem in ePBL.

Figure 3. A snapshot of issue phases in ePBL.

D. Phases of an ePBL Issue

Timely management of PBL class activities is essential for
successful course delivery. In ePBL, scheduling of tasks and
assessments is managed by the instructor while subtasks and
meetings within the group are taken care by the leader.

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Each phase has a leader, optional deliverables, timeline,

self and peer assessment. The leader controls the start and end
of each activity in that particular stage. Instructors can override
any privileges assigned to group leaders and members. Fig. 4
illustrates the details of an issue in ePBL.

Self, leader, and peer assessment mechanism is also

optionally available at the phase level. Evaluations are
performed at the end of each phase in the issue. Progress
reports, self and peer-assessment forms in ePBL are based on
Donald Woodss work in [2]. Teacher configure a list of ePBL
feedback and evaluations forms while adding a learning issue
to the problem as illustrated in Fig.6.

Figure 6. Optional self, peer, and leader evaluations in ePBL

Figure 4. Phases in an ePBL issue

E. Assessment and Grading Scheme

ePBL provides several types of self, peer, and teacher
assessments schemes. Tutors can choose one of two issuelevel grading types, a simple single grade and a rubric. It is up
to the instructor to determine the percentages of self, peer, and
teacher grades in the issues total score. This can be changed
from one issue to another in the course of the problem.

Once a form is due, learners are alerted by activating the

form link and showing it in red color. ePBL makes use of
green, yellow, and red colored symbols to help students
recognize whether a task is done, pending, or past due.
Participants realize that a phase is complete only when all the
status icons to the left to the required items are in green as
shown in Fig. 7.

A rubric created in ePBL is a reusable list of multi-level

criteria saved at the site level, it can be used with or without
modifications in other problems. This sub-module has been
developed from scratch since the ones supported by moodle
advanced assignments were found inappropriate for PBL
authentic assessments. The availability of both simple and
complex grading scheme gives flexibility to instructor for all
problem scales. The rubric is visible by students at many areas
of the problem workspace. Figure 5 illustrates a sample rubric
in ePBL.

Figure 7.

Figure 5. Sample rubric in ePBL.

Status of required items in a phase

F. Interactivity Within The Problem Workspace

Several modules are supported within the problem in ePBL
for group-level communications and resource sharing. Students
in the group are able to communicate with the instructor and
each other using handy email tool. Chatting is also supported at
all stages of the problem. It helps member discussing their
tasks, gathered information, plans, and in pre and post meetings
discussion.

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A dynamic problem-level scheduling module in ePBL

assists instructors for posting their free slots, assessment
meetings, and office hours. Group leaders have the privilege of
reserving, changing, or cancelling the session. This tool helped
in automating the management of PBL course which is
considered a huge burden on educators especially in large
classes.
A file sharing space is available for each group in the
problem. Individual group members use it for sharing all types
of documents and for their own records. General settings of the
file sharing tool are administered by the instructor while
individual files are controlled by the owner of the document.
Deliverables in ePBL are submitted at each phase in the
learning issue, file sharing is not used for submitting gradable
work.
Discussion boards and blogs are available for asynchronous
communications. This makes the discussion more open and
available to group members at all times. Moreover, discussion
of various activities and solutions may follow, and students
may use synthesis and consensus to come up with a solution
that effectively incorporates more than one point of view.
Web conferencing has been incorporated into ePBL using
Sclipo, a freely available tool in moodles download site [11].
Sclipo helps users creating live web classes providing a virtual
meeting facility that integrates video, audio, file-sharing, and
whiteboard means through which group members working
remotely can meet in real time. Sclipo required significant code
modification get it integrated with the problem container. It
still needs extra redesign effort to make it a group-level
component rather than the current architecture at the courselevel. Several other web conferencing modules are available
for download at moodle site but Sclipo has many advanced
features and it is worth it to rewrite a few of its modules to
have it in ePBL.
V.

EPBL TESTING

The participants in this study were 19 Qatar University

female students from the College of Science. They either
major in Chemistry or Biology. The study was conducted in an
introductory computer science course offered by one of the
authors. The course introduces non-major students to the
concepts of computer science mainly algorithms including
their hardware and software realizations.
A. Learners Background
It was important to us to be aware if the student were
involved in any previous PBL work and their familiarity with
moodle.
1) Learners PBL Experience: Almost none of the
participating students had any prior PBL experience. In order
to help the students to get acquainted with the new learning
experience, the facilitator introduced the students to the PBL
pedagogy in general explaining its workflows, group dynamics,
and the responsibilities of the students in different roles.
2) Moodle and Wikis Experience: None of learners needed
or requested help in using moodle. Students found it a user-

friendly LMS, identical results were also found in similar

studies[24]. The majority, however, had difficulties in creating
their first deliverable Wiki. The instructor provided a 15minute tutorial in using them in moodle.
B. The Problem Setup
The problem described in this study was presented to the
students as an independent study topic in the embedded
laboratory of the course. The main issue of the problem was
building a basic website. The maximum grade for the activity
was 5% of the courses total score. The problem statement was
posted to the students three days before forming the groups. In
order to make the learners more comfortable with moodle,
students were advised to browse the PBL site and review the
problem statement before enrolling in one of six available
groups.
C. Problem Statement and Results
The participants were asked to work in groups in order to
help the owner of a specialty restaurant in building a basic
website for his business. The owner indicated that he needs the
site to have information such as restaurants history, detailed
menu, resumes of the chefs, directions, and a few selected
menu items with attractive pictures.
The problem was structured in a way that prevents the
learners from using sophisticated web development tools by
assuming that Notepad is the only available text editor on the
restaurants computer.
The problem involved of only one learning issue. An issue
in ePBL consists of three phases, goals settings,
research/teaching,
and
assessment/feedback.
The
research/teach phase had two one-hour sessions. The
participants needed to submit all deliverables and feedback
forms before moving from one phase to another. A group
leader is appointed for each group on each phase.
The deliverable for the goals setting phase was a group
Wiki detailing, for each member, the roles and topics to be
researched to taught to other members of the group. In the
teaching-research phase, students had no deliverable but were
encouraged to have all discussions on the problems discussion
board. The final deliverable in the assessment-feedback phase
was a ten-minute demo for each group in addition to a one
compressed file that includes all the website data.
All the groups submitted and presented their final solution
to the problem on the specified time slot. All delivered website
met the minimum requirements of the expected outcomes.
Some groups demonstrated impressive first-timer websites.
D. Leaners Feedback
Two questionnaires were conducted during the first pilot
test. The first was done right after the initial goal settings
meeting of the group, the second was completed right before
the final solution presentations.
1) Past Experiences: In the first questionnaire, we tried to
collect data related to their:

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a) Prior PBL work: Nearly all participants lacked any

previous PBL experience. 58% of them have done three or
more collaborative non-PBL group projects while the
remaining 42% have been involved in two projects or less.
Only one of the participating students had a previous
experience in PBL while 16% of them stated that they have
never heard of PBL.
b) Experience in moodle: Qatar Universitys e-learning
portal is Blackboard. 95% of the participating students did not
have any previous experience in using moodle. ePBL makes
use Wikis as one of the collaborative deliverable types,
unfortunately none of the students had any previous experience
in creating Wikis.
c) Perspective to group-discussions: The groups were
asked to submit their detailed action plan after a one-hour
discussion session. 53% said it was sometimes helpful but the
remaining 47% considered the discussions in the gaols meeting
to have been very helpful in preparing their objectives report.
d) Expectations and feelings: Even though the students
were given an orientation session on the concepts of PBL, 32%
of the participants expressed worriedness when they were
asked about their feelings right after the goals-setting phase.
On the other hand, 26% of them stated that they were excited
and the remaining 42% had normal feelings.
2) Feedback on the experience: The second questionnaire
was conducted right before the final presentations and before
posting the scores. By that stage, groups finished all the tasks
assigned to them, it was a good time to collect the overall
feedbacks on their first PBL experience. The questions asked
were related to the perspective of the students to the:
a) ePBL effectiveness and simplicity: During the course
of the problem no complaints were received from the
participants on the use of ePBL. We tried to design the system
in a way that makes it not only easy to use but also intuitive.
Studnets could easiy understand and expect what are they
supposed to do. For instance, many times chairpersons posted
their meeting agendas before receiving the the instructions to
do so. The questions asked to the participants on the effective
and simplicity of ePBL are summarized in Table. I.
TABLE I.

EPBL SIMPLICITY AND EFFECTIVENSS

problem. On the other hand, the class continued using

Blackboard for all other activities not related to the problem.
The class was considerably active in using the collaborative
tools embedded in ePBL. For example, 93 forum posts were
created by the 19 students during the teaching and assessments
phases. The student were also surveyed on their perspectives
on the usefulness of the PBL collaborative group as detailed in
Table. II.
TABLE II.

LEARNER FEEDBACK ON COLLABORATIOVE WORK

Feedbacks

QUESTIONS
I learned a lot from other group
members in the teaching sessions
Group discussions has become
more focused on the solution.
I found the discussion board very
helpful.
b.

SA

SD

37%

47%

11%

5%

0%

37%

37%

26%

0%

0%

16%

47%

32%

0%

0%

SA- Strongly Agree, A-Agree, N-Neutral, D-Disagree, S.D.-Strongly Disagree

b) Acquaintance with PBL: All learners agreed that they

feel more familiar now with PBL pedagogy or not. 42%
strongly agreed and the remaining 52% answer was agree.
E. Analysis of Activity Log Files
An activity log file was downloaded from moodle in order
to better understand the behaviors of the students in accessing
the system and developing the solution. The students have used
ePBL workspace to send emails to their peers and the tutors but
those emails were missing from the log report because of a bug
in the code.
All log entries related to the instructors and the tow
questionnaires were removed from the final activity report. All
other course management activities in the moodle system
outside ePBL were also ignored.
1) Overall activities: More than 6,500 student log entries
were compiled as ePBL activities. 52% of the actions were
related to the problem statement, resources, phases, feedbacks,
and submissions. 22% were Wiki view and edit events, and
19% of the total logs were generated from discussion board.
The participants have made 361 (7%) views or edits using the
chatting tool. Overall activity report is depicted in Fig. 8.

Feedbacks
QUESTIONS
I am now more comfortable in
using both moodle and ePBL.
The PBL system is helping us in
staging the solution.
Green, yellow, and red, symbols
helped me to know whether an
item is done, pending, or past deu.
a.

SA

SD

42%

53%

0%

0%

5%

26%

68%

5%

0%

0%

37%

47%

11%

5%

0%

SA- Strongly Agree, A-Agree, N-Neutral, D-Disagree, S.D.-Strongly Disagree

a) Usefulness of collaborative work and group

interactions: No online PBL environemnt can be fruitful
without effective, and easy to use, communications and
collaboration tools[4]. In this study, the learners were requested
to only use ePBL during the 10 days of working on the

Figure 8. Distribution of logged activities in ePBL

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Technische Universitt Berlin, Berlin, Germany, March 13-15, 2013
2013 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)
Page 1215

2) Discussion board usage: On the average, 5 forum posts

were made by each student either as a new topic or a reply to
another post. What was impressing is the number of times the
participants view the posts made by their group members. The
learners made 919 visits to the discussions board, 10 times
more than the 93 entries created at different forums. It is worth
mentioning that students in this study have used the discussion
board to exchange HTML files and other media contents
needed in their solutions.
3) Wiki activities: 19 Wikis were created by the students
in the goals phase with a total of 189 edits, i.e. 10 edits per
student. This high number of edits per Wiki could be easily
explained from the results of the learners background
questionnaire from which we learned that none of the students
have created a Wiki before.
VI.

CONCLUTION

PBL provides a powerful way to enhance the quality of

education by involving students in interesting and challenging
problems that prompt reflection and deep learning.
Designing online PBL environment as a moodle activity
benefits from the infrastructure of the increasingly popular
LMS and from the community contributed tools and modules.
This architecture reduces the development efforts and
resources required to build the environment. In short, it makes
ePBL more of a research opportunity rather than a
development project.
Deployments of pedagogy-specific environments can be
unsuccessful if they were not designed to be incorporated
within the e-learning portal of the institution. Selection of
open-source platforms can reduce both the cost and time
needed in the development process. This choice would also
maximize potential deployments in other institutions.

[8]

[9]

[10]
[11]
[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

Providing orientation sessions for students and faculty

member on both PBL and the use of ePBL in moodle has been
vital in the successful implementation of the environment in
getting the most of the goals of PBL.

[21]

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[22]

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[2]
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[6]

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