Experience with WINDS virtual university

In the WINDS project the consortium partners have experimented with the Virtual University for Architecture and Engineering Design. University professors and their colleagues have created 21 online courses in this field. Their specific requirements have been taken into account in the implementation of the ALE system that integrates the functionality of a complex e-learning system with adaptive educational hypermedia on the Web. In this paper we present the results of several evaluation studies. They imply that suitable innovations, like the concept map, can help us to overcome the "no significant difference phenomenon".