Abstract—Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have created new spaces in the construction of knowledge. Now, teaching goes beyond the institutions themselves and it arrives at businesses, our homes and social venues. The time for learning is no longer confined to a certain place and period of time, but the whole space, at any time, concepts, distance education, e-learning, collaborative work, b-Learning, m-Learning and Web 2.0 have all become increasingly important in higher education and educational communities. Using an action research methodology as qualitative research method, we present a case of a platform implementation to support e-Learning in the School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, Portugal. Once the problem to be addressed was diagnosed, we present the action: a study on e-learning, and an analysis of the characteristics of the platforms to support a range of e-learning in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Based on this study, we developed a portal and this paper presents the phases of development and selection of tools and content, concluding with an evaluation of user satisfaction with this platform, and its importance for the development of e-learning in HEIs.

Index Terms—DL, e-Learning, Web 2.0, LMS, CMS.

The authors are with Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão, Viana do Castelo, Portugal (e-mail: jpsconcept@gmail.com, rgomes@estg.ipvc.pt).

Cite: Bruno Gomes and Rui Gomes, " Facilitating Tool for e-Learning in Higher Education Institutions," International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 90-97, 2013.