The Internet communication environment (ICE)-virtual university as virtual community

Our experiences and research in the field have shown, that students working collaboratively are more successful than students working alone. Therefore, it should be a logical consequence to install collaboration as key factor in a distance study environment. That is not as easy as spoken, because the classical distance study institutions struggle with a bundle of different problems. e.g. in Germany no study fees are allowed so how shoulde highly interactive, small classes be financed? Another problem is the professional restrictions of distance students, their time budget is limited. The consequence is, that normally students have nearly no contact with their peers and their tutors until the final examinations. The drop-out rates are extremely high (more than 90%) and a lot of students study more than six years to reach a degree. The deployment of virtual teaching improved the situation substantially, but not enough. The paper tries to show a solution for the mentioned problems.