Universities increasingly record lectures and make them available online for students. Though the technology to record these lectures is now solidly implemented and embed-ded in many institutions, the impact of the usage of recorded lectures on exam perfor-mance is not clear. The purpose of the current study is to address the use of recorded lectures in an authentic setting by focusing on the actual time spent on the usage of recorded lectures and the impact on lecture attendance and exam performance. The participants were 396 first-year university psychology students attending a mandatory course on biological psychology. During the course, student attendance to face-to-face lectures was registered and the viewing of the recordings monitored. Results revealed that a large amount of students used the recorded lectures as a substitute for lecture attendance. The group who uses recorded lectures as a supplement when developing a knowledge base score significantly higher on the assessment. When assessing higher order thinking skills, no significant differences were found between using recording lectures and attending lectures. This can be partly explained by relatively low predictive value either form of lectures have on exam performance.

Several collaboration problems in virtual project teams can be attributed to a hindered process of interpersonal trust formation. In order to design solutions to solve these trust formation problems, it is important to understand how interpersonal trust is formed in face-to-face project teams and how this differs in a virtual setting. Synthesising literature from various disciplines, we propose a cognitive-(factor) and process-oriented model for the formation of interpersonal trust between faceto-face project team members. Taking this kernel theory as a starting point, we analyse how virtual settings alter or even obstruct the process of trust formation. We propose that one method to improve the formation of interpersonal trust is to facilitate virtual project team members with the estimation of each others trustworthiness. This can be done by making information available about individual team members that is based on the antecedents of trustworthiness. We extent current research by taking a designer's perspective to the proposed cognitive schema of trustworthiness and apply it for the design of artefacts, such as personal identity profiles to support estimation of trustworthiness in virtual project teams.

The provision of lifelong learning facilities is considered to be a major new direction for higher and distance teaching educational institutes catering for the demands of industry and society. ICT networks will in future support seamless, ubiquitous access to lifelong learning facilities at home, at work, in schools and universities. This implies the development of new ways of organizing learning delivery that that goes beyond course and programmecentric models. It envisions a learner-centred, learner-controlled model of distributed lifelong learning. We present a conceptual model for the support of lifelong learning which is based on notions from self-organization theory, learning communities, agent technologies and learning technology specifications such as IMS Learning Design. An exploratory implementation has been developed and used in practice. We reflect on the findings and future directions. 2 Lifelong Learning NetworksBoth higher and distance education are currently exploring the new possibilities offered by eLearning. Today we find new, collaborative initiatives such as virtual universities, consortia and digital universities, which aspire to share learning resources, increase the quantity and quality of educational services, and explore new markets, particularly in the field of lifelong learning (Brookfield, 1987;Cross-Durrant, 1987;Jarvis, 1987;Smith, 1996Smith, , 2001.The underlying idea is that 'lifelong learning' will ultimately provide a major service catering for the needs and demands of industry and society as a whole (Tuijnman, 1992;Ragget, 1996;Schuetze, 2000). Lifelong learning is the concept that refers to the activities a person performs throughout their life to improve their knowledge, skills and competence in a particular field, given some personal, societal or employment related motives (Aspin & Chapman, 2000;Field, 2001;Griffin, 1999).To achieve these aims, educational institutions must offer facilities that meet the needs of learners at various levels of competence throughout their lives. People must be able to use lifelong learning facilities to upgrade their knowledge, skills and competence in a discipline as required. They can also contribute to the facilities by sharing knowledge and supporting other learners. Lifelong learners are not merely consumers of learning facilities, but can be asked to actively contribute to the facilities themselves (Fischer & Ostwald, 2002).A promising approach to lifelong learning is to use ICT networks to connect distributed learners and providers in a discipline to establish Learning Networks (LNs). ICT networks can support seamless, ubiquitous access to learning facilities at work, at home and in schools and universities. Learning resources from providers such as schools, companies, libraries and the learners themselves can be made available from a single point of access and learners can be helped to perform certain tasks more efficiently by including software support.The use of ICT networks implies the development of new ways of organizing...

In assessment the tendency is no longer focused on massive standardized testing with multiple choice questions based on knowledge acquisition. In the new learning approach assessment is integrated in learning and instruction and addresses the complex traits (the abilities, the characteristics in a specific domain) of students. To fit this new approach, new types of assessment are developed, like peer assessment or competence assessment. The development of these new assessments is an expensive and intensive activity. Exchange initiatives enable the re-use of materials that are developed by others. But several questions arise: Must assessments be completely re-used, and if not, what parts of an assessment can be re-used, and is re-use limited to particular item formats?In this article we present a conceptual model (an ´educational model') for assessment, cast in a UML class model, that offers to support both new and traditional assessment types. The model is validated against the theory of Stiggins (1992) according to the development of performance assessments, the four processes framework of Almond, Mislevy (2001, 2003) and the QTI specification. The educational model for assessment gives new input to the alignment of the teaching, learning and assessment. Assessment model 3Modeling Assessment for Re-use of Traditional and New Types of Assessment.Assessments are at the core of the educational process because they have a direct impact on the learning processes of students. Summative assessments help to establish whether our students have attained the goals set for them. Formative assessments provide prescriptive feedback to assist students in reaching their goals. Where instruction and assessment are considered as separate activities, assessment is often referred to as 'testing ' (Birenbaum, 1996).In this article we define assessment as all the systematic methods that can be used to gather information and evidence about student properties, based on a process, a product or the progress of a student, for the purposes of certification, placement or diagnoses in formative and summative contexts. This definition includes classical tests, examinations and questionnaires, as well as newer types of assessment, such as competence-based assessment, portfolio assessment and peer assessment.These new types of assessment are typically embedded in an educational context, requiring more stipulation of the processes of assessment and relying on higher levels of student involvement in assessment (Sluijsmans, Brand-Gruwel, van Merriënboer & Martens, 2004). The shift to a perspective which is centered on student learning from a perspective which focused on the teacher is the greatest conceptual shift which has occurred in recent times in (higher) education (Boud, 1995). Assessments have a direct effect on students' learning processes. The type of assessment expected by students, influences the way they learn, and thus assessment is like "the tail that wags the curriculum dog" (Hargreaves, 1989). 'New learning' is descri...

Abstract:Most research of the use of recorded lectures by students is based on surveys. In this article we will report on the further analysis of student's use of recorded based on methodological triangulation. We will describe the process of data pre-processing where a number of data sources are combined after which the data is cleaned, removing outliers and data not relevant to the research.The analysis looks both at the data form a high level point of view and on the more detailed level for a single course. We will show differences and similarities in the responses by the students about their use of the recorded lectures and the data logged by the systems that serve the recorded lectures to the students.