E-schools, marked by their digital and interactive settings, offer synchronous and asynchronous learning, transcending traditional educational confines. Highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, these schools emphasize flexibility and accessibility, crucial for education during crises. The expected post-pandemic growth of e-learning stresses…

Peer assisted study sessions (PASS), also known as supplemental instruction, are structured peer guided sessions linked to a specific course, led by experienced and trained students called PASS-leaders. These PASS-leaders undergo several days of training before running their first session and receive supervision and feedback "on the…

The situation caused by coronavirus disease 2019 closures in the spring of 2020 resulted in various restrictions for universities and led to a reorganisation of their operations. This created unprecedented challenges for all academic work. This study aimed to analyse the pandemic-related work experiences of doctoral researchers from several…

This study sets out to explore how trainee teachers engage with each other in an initial synchronous virtual exchange task. We adopt Gijsen's (2021) task engagement parameter of partner orientation in combination with multimodal (inter)action analysis (Norris, 2004) to investigate how different verbal and coverbal modes contribute to establishing…

While literature has discussed benefits and challenges of synchronous hybrid education, there is limited insight into how to tailor education activities to a hybrid setting. After distilling six principles from literature, the paper describes how a pilot conducted in the master Law & Technology at Tilburg Law School contributes to filling this…

The author of this article uses two empirical approaches to compare online to face-to-face proctored assessment. Using data from a Dutch economics program, he shows that the relationship between grades and human capital variables remains highly significant for courses with online proctored examinations. Additionally, a search for suspicious grade…

This article describes the experience of two educators in a master program in Pedagogy in the Netherlands. Their experience is of an online gathering with students and educators that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students and educators were not allowed to meet face-to-face, thus resorted to online education. What happened at that online…

Peer feedback can enhance learning but may introduce issues like peer pressure and distrust, particularly with professional competencies like teamwork. This jeopardizes the feedback process and skill development crucial for undergraduate students' career preparation. To address this, two approaches are generally used: anonymizing feedback or…

Feedback plays a vital role in the process of mastering writing in many academic disciplines. Although peer feedback has been proven helpful to develop students' academic writing competency, the role of additional face-to-face peer dialogue in this context remains indistinct. Face-to-face peer dialogue on written peer feedback is expected to…

Maastricht University (UM) has a distinct global perspective and a strong focus on innovation. UM offers an array of PhD courses to distance and campus based students who have access to elective, credit bearing modules and the language needs of these students are catered for by the Language Centre. Many PhD candidates choose to take an academic…

"Social Europe Days" is a collaborative four-day international seminar held yearly near Brussels, Belgium, by a network of ten European universities from eight different countries. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the seminar had to be offered virtually and redesigned. The final design included synchronous and asynchronous activities,…

Systematic reviews of literature are studies that strategically search for published research on a specific topic in order to synthesize what is known about the topic. This systematic review describes 157 articles on synchronous online learning (SOL) from thirty-four different countries on instructional setting, content areas, participant…

This article attempts to shed some light on the possible learning benefits for language acquisition and intercultural development of authentic social interaction with expert peers through computer mediated communication (CMC) tools. The environments used in this study are video communication and the 3D virtual world "Second Life." For…

The shift to a knowledge information society has given rise to a need for lifelong learning programmes. Such programmes are especially relevant for public health professionals, whose dynamic field of practice is subject to changes due to rapidly developing technologies, evolving expectations of the labour market and new health treats. Lifelong…

In 2013 five universities from across Europe undertook an innovative project "Media Culture 2020", combining skills and forces to develop new practices that would face the challenge of the convergence of digital media, taking full advantage of social media and cloud-based technologies. The aim of the Media Culture 2020 project was to…