Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to describe the conception process of an e-learning platform for transport education. The e-learning platform is designed to support students' learning of transport education in vocational school, high school, undergraduate and graduate studies. The development of an e-learning platform is part of the education cooperation “REWWay” which aims to enhance people’s knowledge and awareness for eco-friendly transportation. Eco-friendly transport means inland waterway and rail transport since these modes present a significantly lower carbon footprint than road transport. The education on rail and inland waterway is intended to support people's interest in a sustainable transport system in future.

To identify the platform’s requirements, qualitative empiric research in form of focus groups and expert interviews was conducted. As a first step, 34 educational institutions (i.e. vocational schools, high schools, universities) and 13 companies were asked about their necessities for sustainable transport education. Results suggest that there is a lack of educational material and knowledge for eco-friendly transport education. Thus, hardly any time is used for the topic of eco-friendly education. In fact, ten to twenty times more are used for road transport.

In addition, the interviewed lecturers and company representatives claim for training material which force students to work actively, since a higher learning success can be achieved. Active work means every didactic task where students do something by themselves such as research to answer questions, to do presentations or to participate in a role-play.

Moreover, results show that an easy access to the e-learning platform is urgently needed because teachers and lecturers often face a problem of usability. Thus, target group specific accesses to the platform as well as train-the-trainer offers are needed.

The result of this first research is a specific requirement profile which defines contents, didactic structure as well as technical specification. As a second step, these requirements are discussed with experts for e-learning platform and didactics.

During the survey and evaluation process a structured literature review is conducted. The results of the literature review, together with the results from the interviews results in a concept for a high-quality e-learning platform for transport education.

Keywords:

Transport education, logistics, e-learning platform.