proceedings of Student Mobility and ICT: Can E-LEARNING

to submit questions on the content of the lectures at all, and if so they preferred to do this during the face to
face meetings. Only 60 contributions were submitted to the discussion board, from which half related to
topics like changes of rooms, not being able to find information or other not content related topics. Besides
this lecure discussion board students could discuss task-related topics in forums connected to each of seven
tasks. This was done to even lesser extent: 27 contributions in total, related to four of the seven tasks. The
block coordinator participated actively in all these forums.
Responding the question whether the online services had (positively) influenced their learning or
level of understanding, 50% agreed on the idea that this had raised their personal outcome. And 80% of the
respondents claim that the quality of the course has been raised by digitizing the lectures and resources. The
quality was rated high, the added value as well. During the course one of the students reported problems
downloading the lectures at her home computer and asked for a copy on DVD or a version to be
downloaded on USB-device. This could not be done due to restrictions in order to prevent unauthorized use
or sharing of the material. But inquiring after the need of students to be able to watch the lectures via
podcasting (on their cell phones or i-pods) only 12% responded to really like this option, 30% would
perhaps use this podcasting option if made available.
Results of the course related evaluation
Besides the experiment related questionnaire, students filled out the standard course evaluation in
order to compare the opinions on quality of (several aspects of) the course with other courses (these
students participated in) and previous versions of the same course. According to results of these standard
evaluations, one can conclude the course has been graded higher on practically all aspects; the overall
opinion on the course increased from 6.6 to 7.4 (on a scale of 10), while time spent on the study went up
from 10.5 hours to 13.6 hours per week. The appreciation of the lectures increased from 5.7 to 6.8. On top
of this the results on the final test showed a increase of scores; 8% more students passed the final test
compared to the previous year, with a slightly higher score (6.4 compared to 6.3 last year).
Results in short
• Digitizing all learning material (literature and lectures) meant 13 days more work then usual;
• Literature has been referred to more often (due to topic or course in relation to others or becasue the
literature is easier to consult because of the digitizing?);
• The appreciation of the digital resources is high;
• Main reasons for this are the time gain and the ease of printing on demand;
• Both lecturers and students state lectures are visited as much as before;
• Most students watch the video lectures. 40% instead of attending, 30% as a rehearsal option;
• 75% of the respondents stated to use the video lectures to prepare for the test (Note: the students who
really did so according to the server log, scored lower on the test);
• 50% of the respondents do not feel the online lectures and resources having influenced their level of
understanding, 50% thinks the level reached is higher then would have been reached without;
• 8% more students passed the final test compared to the previous year, with a slightly higher score (6.4
compared to 6.3 last year);
• 80% of the students feels the quality of the course has been raised by digitizing.
Discussion & conclusion
Although the students highly appreciate the fact that all material has been offered in an online
format, the costs do not seem to compensate the results (in the case of a course for ‘on campus’ students).
If, however, reuse is possible, for instance for a part time or distance education version (sometimes running
parallel), or if the content is of such complexity ‘attending’ a lecture again and possibly prolongue
discourse, the idea is that digitizing lectures is worthwhile. The same goes for the literature: only for
students not able to visit the library on a regular basis or if more interactivity with the material can be
offered (like linking to other sources, or a marking or annotation function), the expenses for digitizing (in
cooperation with the publishers) seem to be justified. Important to be aware of is the opportunity lecture
registrations offer for reuse; instead of inviting students to come to the university to listen a teacher orate,
one could cut lectures in pieces and combining them with assignments, offer them online and have students
Conference proceedings of Student Mobility and ICT: Can E-LEARNING overcome barriers of Life-Long learning?” 174