Current e-learning environment do not adequately support collaboration among students and between students and lecturers. This paper presents the design principles, prototype design and heuristic evaluation of teach, learn and research (TELEREC) e-collaboration environment for higher educational institutions. The objectives are to investigate existing design principles and didactics for e-collaboration to ascertain a realistic option for designing and developing an e-collaboration environments; second, to report on the implementation of the prototype design using a blended learning approach; and finally, to conduct formative assessment and experts' evaluation of the system. The methodological approach followed a design research approach which also integrates the values and practices of iterative development as well as user-centered design activities. The results of the study suggest that TELEREC e-collaboration environment support important usability elements such as navigability, consistency, efficiency, attractiveness, visibility and controllability as discussed in the findings. © 2014 IEEE.