Resumen
Academic institutes harness technology in order to provide new options for students to learn. One of these technologies is offering video classes that can be seen through the Internet, using different kinds of devices, like personal computers, tablets or smartphones. This research inspects the differences in usage patterns of watching video lectures, by students in fifteen academic institutes, in three different countries: The USA, the UK and Australia. The usage patterns inspected were the type of device used, period during the semester when the videos were played and drop-off percentage. The possibility to watch anywhere and anytime, not needing to attend personally the classroom, opens a new trigger to procrastination. This research used objective data extracted from Kaltura's database, the supplier of the video infrastructure for those academic institutes, during one year (two semesters). Our findings showed that students worldwide prefer to watch online video classes using PCs, while the mobile devices are scarcely used; they prefer short videos, especially at the end of the semester, or they drop-off after a minimal number of minutes watching. Moreover, a U-shape curve of e-learning during the semester was observed, where the video watching was concentrated at the beginning and end of the semester.