DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING E-COURSES FOR PROMOTION OF ENERGY EFFICIENT AND SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS

One of the most important objectives of the European Union (EU) energy strategy is looking for sustainable development through the improvement of energy efficiency and the promotion of renewable energy sources. Following the Directive 2002/91/EC on the energy performance of buildings, buildings will have an impact on long-term energy consumption and new buildings should therefore meet minimum energy performance requirements tailored to the local climate. Within the context of an Intelligent Energy Europe project, ten partners coming from four central and southern European countries have developed concrete pilot actions planned and implemented towards building integrated model of sustainable communities, based on an analysis of the local framework conditions and on data collected in energy audits. The University of Burgos has prepared the training material and has organised an on-line, e-course for international participants. This paper presents a case study on the development of the international e-course, planned for an expected student workload of 100 hours. The course is fully delivered by UBUCampus-e, the learning content management system of the University of Burgos for distance teaching. Besides electronic books and links to technical web sites, some multimedia presentation with interactive exercises and questionnaires, technical video and hypermedia tools are included to promote active learning. The assessment rely on questionnaires and exercises in each module. A survey on student's attitudes and engagement with the e-learning course is performed. Some questionnaires and the tracking facility of the UBUCampus-e are used for. The programme is flexible enough to fulfil the different engineering training needs in the energy subject of nationals from countries with different degrees of socio-economic and industrial development.