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This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a theory-driven realist evaluative research approach to better understand complex technology implementations in organizations.

An institution wide e-learning implementation of lecture capture (LC), within a UK University, was chosen, and a realist evaluation framework was used, tailored for educational technology. The research was conducted over four, increasingly focused, evaluation cycles combining engagement analytics, user interviews and theory to refine what works (or does not work), for whom, in which contexts and why.

Despite explicit demand and corresponding investment, overall student engagement is lower than expected. Increased student use appears linked to particular staff attitudes and behaviours and not to specific disciplines or course content. The main benefits of LC are providing reassurance to the majority, aiding revision and understanding for the many and enabling catch-up for the few. Recommendations for future research are based on some unexpected outcomes uncovered, including evolving detrimental student behaviours, policy development based on technological determinism and future learner-centred system development for next-generation LC technologies.

The realist approach taken, and evaluation framework used, can be adopted (and adapted) for future evaluative research. Domain specific reference models, categorizing people and technology, supported analysis across multiple contexts.

This study responds to a call for more theory-based research in the field of educational technology. The authors demonstrate that a theory-driven approach provides real and practical recommendations for institutions and allows for greater insight into the political, economic and social complexity of technology implementation.

Adoption of latest technological advancements (e.g. lecture capture system) is a hallmark of market-driven private universities. Among many other distinguishing features, lecture capture system (LCS) is the one which is being offered to enhance the flexibility of learning environment for attracting executive business students. Majority of foreign universities are offering the facility of LCS to their students in offshore campuses established in Malaysia. Yet, very little is known about perception and behaviour of executive business students towards acceptance and use of this facility. Therefore, to bridge the identified gap in academic literature, this study is an effort to explore the causal relationship between existing constructs of extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2), personal innovativeness (PI), intention and use behaviour (UB) towards LCS. Moreover, this study is aimed to extend the UTAUT2 by introducing a new variable, namely, PI in the domain of information technology (IT) (PIIT).

SmartPLS-3.2.6 was used for data analysis and all PLS-related calculations. For this purpose, a self-administered questionnaire was designed to collect data regarding acceptance and UB towards LCS. A sample size of 481 responses from executive business students, who were enrolled in offshore campuses of five selected foreign universities in Malaysia, was used for testing the proposed theoretical model.

The results of structural equation modelling (SEM) revealed that, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, price value, hedonic motivation, habit and PIIT have a significant and positive influence on acceptance and use of LCS among executive business students. Unique to this study is that, findings of this study have highlighted PIIT as an important factor that affects intention and UB towards LCS among executive business students.

By validating and extending the UTAUT2, the findings of this study provide a number of practical implications along with a comprehensive, robust and useful framework for universities to successfully implement technological advancements, such as LCS, to enhance overall learning outcomes.

By investigating the factors determining acceptance and use of LCS among executive business students, using a partial least square (PLS)-based SEM approach, this study makes a sizeable theoretical, methodological and contextual contribution to the overall body of knowledge.

A key role of the external examiner is to review student work submitted for assessment plus the feedback and grading undertaken on that work by academic staff. The aim of this is to ensure equitability between the assessments of individual students’ achievement and consistency and comparability across courses throughout the program and with commensurate study levels and programs at other institutions, whilst safeguarding academic standards. The variety of assessment-types that an external examiner may review can be diverse. When the primary focus of the work being assessed is tangible, such as with written examinations or assignments, external examiners are able to view student achievements and assessor actions through a lens comparable to that of the original assessors. However, this process cannot adequately capture assessment-types where the only evidence is proxies to the original achievement. In this chapter, the authors explore the concept of authentic assessments, the benefits of incorporating them within study programs, identify challenges pertaining to their presence to holistic quality assurance (QA) processes in general, and the role of the external examiner in particular. The authors will demonstrate how adopting non-intrusive technologies for recording and verifying authentic assessment practices can strengthen the QA process for the benefit of all stakeholders. For illustration, a case study is employed to demonstrate how these challenges have been tackled regarding performance-based authentic assessments at an institution in Norway. The chapter concludes with a summary plus a call to arms for further research into how quality and consistency can be assured when authentic assessments are employed.

The purpose of this paper is to share lessons already learned and work currently in progress from one higher education institution’s experiences of developing several flexible and technology-enhanced active learning spaces. It further proposes that the potential of such spaces can be more fully realised through the enactment of programmes of digital literacy development amongst their users.

In identifying a convergence of profound challenges facing higher education and proposing that innovations in physical learning spaces are one approach to addressing such challenges, the paper examines a number of institutional policies and initiatives for rethinking and redesigning several physical classroom environments. It sets internal findings and position statements amidst a broader context of relevant field literature.

The paper provides insights from several years of experience in higher education learning space development, including the benefits of iterative experimentation, the consultative role of a multi-stakeholder specialist group, the challenges of balancing pedagogic need with often conflicting institutional requirements and the value of varied programmes of staff development.

This paper’s insights will be of value to individuals and institutions engaged in reconsidering their provision of physical classroom spaces in higher education and to those promoting the effective use of learning spaces in the digital university.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the association between memory (short- and long-term), a foundational cognition in learning and face-to-face, video-based and flipped instructional modalities.

This study used a one-way analysis of variance and linear regression analyses to compare students’ aggregated answers on multiple-choice questions over two different periods, including a repeat question from an earlier examination. Also, student-level answers were subjected to a binary logistic regression.

Face-to-face unambiguously was associated with superior short-term memory including ethics. Video-based performance was associated with a superior long-term memory, and flipped’s performance lay in between for both memory types.

This study does not account for students’ learning styles, instructors’ preferred teaching approach and computer-aided virtual simulations.

The findings of this study may serve as a reference point for optimally blending multiple instruction modalities to leverage its association with memory for learning matched to instructors’ styles, students’ curricular pathway and coping with institutional imperatives.

This paper provides a way for higher education institutions to match instructional modalities to memory needs, including business ethics as students’ progress on their pathways towards graduation.

This study illuminates the association between memory, a widely accepted foundational cognition in learning that has been under researched compared to critical thinking and reasoning, and three instructional modalities: face-to-face, video-based and flipped classroom.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of online video mini-lectures, intended to complement in-class teaching by allowing students to review the more technical aspects of the course.

Online video mini-lectures/tutorials, covering the technical components of the course, were introduced two-thirds of the way through a Principles of Microeconomics course. This methodology allows for the estimation of the impact of incorporating this technology on student performance. In addition, comparisons using results from previous terms, in which these videos were not available at any point during the course, allow for an examination of the overall impact of this technology on student performance in the last portion of the course.

The results point to online lectures improving student achievement, but that this improvement is mostly achieved by the lower achieving students, and exhibits significant diminishing returns to the number of times the videos are watched. As such, the videos are shown to help students who were struggling with the material, but that there is little value to exclusively watching the videos multiple times.

As technology impacts higher education, many wonder what role instructors will play. This study examines a unique implementation of technology within a traditional classroom, indicating that technology can serve as a complement to in-class teaching.

When developing online programs, institutions have a social responsibility to safeguard academic freedom. In the United States, a perceived lack of career relevance, declining enrollments, and a desire to expand institutional impact have compelled numerous institutions to create online degree programs. The decision to scale some online programs, in collaboration with for-profit online program managers, into enrollments in the thousands is seen by a number of faculty and professional organizations as evidence of the rise of neoliberalism, at the expense of academic freedom and faculty governance.

This chapter begins by setting the context for the discussion of academic freedom and online degree programs. I provide a review of the growth of online degree programs and discuss some of the reasons a campus might choose to take programs online, as some of the reasons reveal tensions impacting academic freedom. I follow with case examples and strategies that may help institutions balance online initiatives with practices that preserve academic freedom and quality. The chapter concludes that the challenges raised should not be framed as “either/or” choices – the examples provided demonstrate that academic freedom can and should be sustained, especially within large programs, regardless of being on-ground or online.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how professionals who are continuing their education rate a higher education quality management course with an emphasis on reflective learning and real problem-solving. The audited course consists of module-based teaching, while students work on an improvement project at their workplace between course sessions. This study has a twofold aim: to contribute to the design of quality improvement courses based on doing as we learn and to offer insight into the use of a final grading method that consist of a folder with reports from the intermediate work steps and a final report.

After completing the course, students received a survey with questions and statements about the course content, delivery and final grading methods. They answered these questions on a seven-point Likert scale and also answered open-ended questions.

It is clear that professional students value the interweaving of theory with real-life training, and they value module-based teaching in which theory is reviewed and applied to practical problems. Reflective learning was achieved through feedback from both teachers and fellow students on various interim reports. Students’ employers benefit from the course, as students gain experience with quality improvement. The grading of a final report on the improvement project based on three sub-assignments was highly appreciated.

Developers in courses in quality improvement benefit from learning how this course is structured, assessed and how participants perceived its components.

The course design with modules and intermediate work steps, where the students apply theory in quality improvement to a real project at their workplace, is an original concept. The modules correspond to the plan, do, check and act (PDCA) methodology.

We describe an automatic classroom capture system that detects and records significant (stable) points in lectures by sampling and analyzing a sequence of screen capture frames from a PC used for presentations, application demonstrations, etc. The system uses visual inspection techniques to scan the screen capture stream to identify points to store. Unlike systems that only detect and store slide presentation transitions, this system detects and stores significant frames in any style of computer‐based lecture using any program. The system is transparent to the lecturer and requires no software or training. It has been tested extensively on lectures with multiple applications and pen‐based annotations and has successfully identified “significant” frames (frames that represent stable events such as a new slide, bullet, figure, inked comment, drawing, code entry, application entry etc.). The system can analyze over 20000 frames and typically identifies and stores about 100 significant frames within minutes of the end of a lecture. A time stamp for each saved frame is recorded and will in the future be used to compile these frames into a jMANIC multimedia record of the class.