FLEXIBILITY AND COOPERATION: VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS IN ONLINE UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS Morten Misfeldt and Anders Sanne Learning Lab Denmark and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology In this paper we investigate the learning environment in the online undergraduate mathematics initiative DELTA. We find that the students work alone and that their most important learning relation is to the teacher. The students need flexibility in respect to when and where they can study, and this affects their ability to have learning relations to other students. Communication on mathematical issues is difficult using computers, and the tools offered by our LMS is insufficient. It seems hard for the students to self organise their online collaboration in mathematics. ABOUT THE DELTA PROJECT The DELTA project consists of eight online undergraduate mathematics courses at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The subjects are the same as taught on campus, but adapted for distant learners. The syllabuses and the exams are the same as in the campus courses. Each course gives 7.5 ECTS credits, and the eight DELTA courses are: • Basic Calculus I • Basic Calculus II • Linear Algebra and Geometry • Linear Algebra with Applications • Number Theory • Geometry • Probability • Statistical Methods The typical DELTA-student is a teacher in upper secondary school who wants to become qualified as a teacher in mathematics. Most of our students are teaching economics or biology, and some of them are mathematics teachers without a formal education in mathematics (60 ECTS credits). The students live in different parts of Norway — some students live more than 1000 km from Trondheim. The subjects taught in our courses are very traditional undergraduate mathematics courses. We use ICT for communication, flexibility and cooperation, but the use of ICT is not a learning objective in itself. DELTA is based on the use of a learning management system (LMS). The LMS is our most important communication channel, and we use it to publish texts, streamed video lessons and exercises. The students make active use of the discussion groups offered to them inside our LMS [1]. At the Norwegian University of Science and Technology we have a studio for media productions. The media centre produces and streams our video lessons. The students emphasise the video lessons as very instructive and important for their learning. Working Group 9 CERME 5 (2007) 1470