One of the main problems of virtual universities of technical degrees like engineering, is that students should learn practical design concepts and should work in group without neither the physical presence of a teacher nor his colleagues. This problem can be solved by using new tools based on the new information and communication technologies (ICT). The European Unions is conscious of this problem and is promoting this kind of non presencial studies. Its objectives are to harmoni/e the knowledge in all the European community and to promote the relations among the different cultures. Therefore, the EU is financing a project of a virtual university in the area of architecture and engineering. In this article, the main characteristics of this Coordinated Project are exposed. This project integrates the actions of Investigation, Development and Demonstration and it's known with the acronym WINDS (Web based Intelligent Design tutoring System) and is basically related to the objectives of "Flexible University" whose mission is to promote the development of new scenarios of teaching by creating an European Virtual University. The aim of this article is to show that it's possible to succeed in learning practical subjects by a "learning by doing" process. The students should solve problems and take decisions based on few information and achieve abilities of working in group in a virtual way. The aim of this project is to obtain virtual teaching of subjects related to construction design, completely comparable to whatever engineering project.
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