Weblectures have become commonplace. Yet little data is available on their impact on lecture attendance. At the Law Faculty, it seems students are attending fewer lectures as a result.

A work group appointed by the Faculty of Law is looking into the details of web lectures. The reason: Many students no longer attend lectures live if they can follow them online. ‘Not that everyone stays home, but there’s a clear drop in attendance,’ says Dean of the Faculty of Law, Piet Hein van Kempen.

Meeting

This is reason for concern, thinks Van Kempen. ‘We find it important that students attend lectures. Lectures are of course intended for knowledge transfer, but also to make students enthusiastic about their discipline. In that sense it’s essential that students meet lecturers and each other. They’ve got so much to learn from one another. What you need are discussions in the break with other students. After all, we’re an academic community.’

‘What you need are discussions in the break with other students’

The Faculty plans to continue to offer web lectures, says Van Kempen. The work group is investigating the best way to do this. Should web lectures be available to everyone or only to part-time or ill students? Should they be available only two weeks before the exam, or throughout the teaching period? Their work should be finished before summer.

Direction

It’s unclear whether the problem only affects the Faculty of Law. There’s been little research on campus concerning the link between web lectures and lecture attendance. The most recent study dates from more than seven years ago. Nevertheless, all available data do point in the same direction: web lectures lead to fewer students actually attending at the lecture hall.