Due to the vagaries of the world's time zones, CQUniversity's Colin Beer rose at 2.30am today (Oct 22) to help lead discussion and answer questions during a global 'campus technology' webinar - a sort of online conference using audio links.

It's lucky his alarm clock was working because almost 1000 people registered to take part and Colin was one of only three panel members.

Researcher Colin Beer recovers after his early morning 'webinar' event

The Rockhampton-based educational developer and researcher was chosen to help lead the event based on his extensive blogging as part of the Indicators Project, which evaluates student usage of online learning management systems at a range of universities, including's CQUniversity's Moodle-based network.

In other words, Colin is at the worldwide cutting-edge of moves to monitor student behaviour in online classrooms.

Colin runs the Indicators Project alongside Ken Clark, Damien Clark and former CQUni staff member David Jones, and says one of the best examples of its worth is the ability to forecast potential 'at risk' students, by comparing their level of online study engagement with wider cohorts.

The rest of the webinar panel comprised Stephen Downes from Canada's National Research Council (known for his daily online learning newsletter distributed to thousands of subscribers) and new Moodlerooms Inc president Lou Pugliese, whose company provides a cloud-hosted eLearning platform used worldwide. The event was moderated by Linda Briggs, the contributing editor for Campus Technology magazine.

The global webinar focused on ways to ensure students are engaging with online learning, the latest products and trends, the integration of social media and (Colin's area) the use of analytical technologies to measure student engagement.