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Distance education is not a new paradigm, but the latest ways it can be delivered certainly are. In the past couple of decades, the distance learning implementations were mostly realized using videoconferencing technologies and/or learning management systems. Recently, various Internet collaboration services have gained enormous popularity in all areas of human living, especially in distance learning, where many of them are offered free of charge. In this paper we elaborate the deployment of a synchronous distance lecturing solution based on free audioconferencing and screen sharing networking technologies, and we discuss the benefits gained in the context of cost, functionalities, effectiveness and users' satisfaction. The experiences after three semesters of use indicate that this alternative approach provides quite valuable means for effective implementation of distance learning, where the students appeared to be highly satisfied by the possibilities and functionalities that the system offers.

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Abstract. The rapid development and adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially the vast proliferation of Internet and Web 2.0 paradigm in the recent years, have profoundly transformed the traditional ways of doing businesses worldwide. Going virtual has offered the companies many new possibilities, but it has also revealed many potential obstacles that have imposed new business strategies. Beyond any doubt, creating satisfied e-Customers, who will generate more e-Customers, is the best business strategy of all for online companies. Satisfied e-Customers are the key premise to attracting new e-Customers and then retaining them on a long term, the two most important aspects of doing business online. In that context, the paper highlights some results of an online survey, conducted among college students in the Republic of Macedonia, regarding their perceived levels of satisfaction vis-à-vis their B2C e-Commerce purchasing experiences. The statistical analysis of the survey results is based on the appliance of elements of descriptive and inferential statistics, as well as linear correlation and factor analysis. As such, the aim of the paper is to provide a profound knowledge and understanding of how Macedonian college students evaluate their online shopping experiences.

Manual student attendance tracking, by calling student names from a check list or taking students' signs on a paper, has gone into history. Nowadays, modern technologies have already enabled the development of various automatized attendance tracking systems. These technologies include: Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), Biometric (fingerprint, face or voice recognition), Barcode identification and Bluetooth communication technologies, that are implemented over an IP infrastructure as a platform. But, all these technologies perform in a different manner and exhibit certain functional limitations considering the given implementation. The main motivation for this research was to explore the possibilities for overcoming the issues of current systems for attendance tracking, considering the limitations of the technologies employed. Hence, the core contribution of this research can be considered as a fourfold, i.e. i) it presents the most frequently used technologies in the development of attendance tracking systems, ii) it reviews a range of existing student attendance tracking systems, iii) it defines criteria for performance evaluation of the technologies employed in student attendance tracking, from a perspective of educational institutions, and iv) it evaluates the mostly used technologies according to the predefined functional criteria. As a summary of the evaluation it provides directions for future development of a student attendance tracking system that would address the explored issues and functional limitations.