A Conceptual Model of Social Networking in Higher Education

Abstract

The popularity of social networking sites has led educators to the idea of engaging learners with their studies. After reviewing the potential areas of social network sites employment in higher education, essential social network software tools were composed in a conceptual model. This model covers most popular areas of social networking possibilities in higher education and is generic enough to make it suitable for any higher education organization.

Full text

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ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
ISSN 1392 – 1215 2010. No. 6(102)
ELEKTRONIKA IR ELEKTROTECHNIKA
TECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCES
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
TECHNOLOGIJOS MOKSLAI
A Conceptual Model of Social Networking in Higher Education
P. Jucevičienė, G. Valinevičienė
Department of Educational Systems, Kaunas University of Technology,
K. Donelaičio str. 20–400, 44239 Kaunas, Lithuania, phone: +370 680 46882, e-mail: gintare.valineviciene@stud.ktu.lt
Introduction
Social networking sites have been subject to much
recent debate within the educational community. While
rapidly growing number of innovative educators praise the
potential of social networking to engage learners with their
studies, others fear that such applications compromise and
disrupt young people’s engagement with “traditional”
education concept [1]. But most agree that social
networking is a galaxy of new worlds for learning
professionals. Thus, some authors define social networking
sites as “an online site where a user can create a profile and
build a personal network that connects him or her to other
users for a variety of professional or personal reasons.” [2].
There is a multitude of systems available to manage
online learning. Even though these have proved becoming
popular, they are often “single-user learning environments
which provide little in the way of interaction or stimulation
for the student.” [3]. Cyber teaching researchers Barbour
and Plough (2009) found, that typical online learning raises
a feeling of social isolation, especially for young persons
[4]. The research has proved that it is important to enrich
learning platforms with communicational tools and
promote communication between learners. Social isolation
was the main reason for social networking, as a powerful
formal educational tool, coming to the scene.
The explosion of connective WEB 2.0 online
technologies such as blogs, wikis, and the social
networking sites so many students love to use (and, in
some cases, abuse) have given many educators pause as we
try to understand and navigate a fast-changing, much more
public, collaborative landscape on the Web [5]. It is
important to understand these trends as they relate to
incoming university students, and the exposure they have
had with social networking as a communication
mechanism. Younger students are learning through
technology itself that they have a role to play in the
development of knowledge even in the higher education
[2]. This paper is suggesting a broad view of possibilities
for using social networks in higher education. A wide
range of open source already-built social network sites has
to offer many communication tools and design options.
The research of the most popular social networking sites
have led to the question what are the most important
criteria of its employment in higher education. In order to
systemize the findings, a conceptual model has been
composed.
Literature on Social Networking in Higher Education
WEB 2.0 technologies usage in Higher Education is
innovative in Lithuania. This may be the reason of a lack
of scholar papers or discussions on the subject. Meanwhile
scholars all over the world have been discussing positive
and negative aspects since 2007. Traditional academic
institutions have generally resisted the influence and
increasingly pervasive presence of social networking
activities in the life of their students, but recently the same
institutions have had to look with new eyes at all of the
aspects and consequences of these new modes of
technological socialization sweeping the younger
generations [6].
Universities use the social networking tool and theses
tendencies are developing at tremendous speed. At the
moment, over 470 universities all over the world may be
found in the biggest social network ‘Facebook’. In a period
of three months, this number has increased to over 530.
And it can be assumed that many more will join them in
the near future. The fact is that social networks are already
ready space for public relation actions, reaching few main
target groups – students and school graduates – in an
attractive way. Early studies of social networking in higher
education presented networking as a convenient tool for
academic services [7].
There has been reported a divided opinion about the
use of the social networking service ‘Twitter’ in higher
education. Many academics see ‘Twitter’ influencing less
intellectually demanding society. However, attractive and
effective promotional and networking services have
already won the image of irreplaceable communication
tool in academia [8]. It explains how campus professionals,
especially those in student and academic services, learn to
use these technologies to think differently about
communicating with students and about facilitating
learning. It then discusses the aspects of social networks

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that might translate into ways for creating better and more
effective student and academic services and possible areas
in which the features of social networking technologies
could play a key role, such as class lists and class
schedules to placement services, judicial affairs and
electronic learning [7].
Selwyn (2009), Madge et al. (2009) provide social
networks as a student support feature. It concerns sharing
learning experiences and events, the exchange of logistical
or factual information about teaching and assessment
requirements, moral support with regards to assessment or
learning. “Social networking appears to provide a ready
space where the ‘role conflict’ that students often
experience in their relationships with university work,
teaching staff, academic conventions and expectations can
be worked through in a relatively closed ‘backstage’ area.”
[9) Social network can be presented as part of the ‘social
glue’ that helped first-year students settle into university
life [10].
Social networks may be used most importantly for
social reasons, although they were sometimes used
informally for learning purposes. The communication
patterns enabled by social networking technologies mirror
the exact process many educators seek to support in self-
directed learning based on Social Cognitive,
Constructivism and Cooperate Learning theories [12].
Social learning theorists hold that social interaction is at
the center of effective learning [13]. According to Bersin,
“It (social network) offers an opportunity to “improve
organizational learning and deliver high impact learning
solutions in today’s challenging budget environments.” [3,
p. 14]. While Richardson claims, “All the while making
complex decisions about whom to connect to, how much
information to share, and how best to achieve both
collective and individual goals. <…> In short, they must
be self-directed, self-motivated, lifelong learners who are
network-literate in their creation and participation in these
spaces.” [5].
One more distinguishing feature of social networks is
that they provide an opportunity for supporting the social
construction of knowledge within and between individuals.
[11]. Dawley (2009) stressed out social network as an
environment that supports the literal physical
representations of their knowledge construction. Like the
creation of a paper or portfolio of artefacts that a student
might complete during a traditional course of study. “In the
virtual world students have opportunities to represent their
knowledge using a variety of formats. That knowledge
construction and representation can then be utilized by
others at future dates to extend learning.” [11].
So, concluding the findings above, four main
functions (or possibilities) of social network usage in
higher education may be distinguished:
1. Academic service support;
2. Student support;
3. Social and cooperate learning;
4. Achievement representation.
Yet, all these different social network features were
found in case studies, mentioning different tools: Twitter,
Facebook, MySpace etc. But can we have them all in one?
If yes, what tools are necessary to make social network
compatible for higher education?
Choosing the Right Social Networking Site
A possibility to create a professional social network
to use in higher education begins with technical decisions –
what platform, tools, interface would suit the needs and
what opportunities are available. A variety of open source
social networking sites makes decisions easier.
Sharing his large practice on social networks creation
for enterprises learning purposes, Bersin (2008) provides
these guidelines:
• Train people to use the tool;
• Give users room to discuss new ideas and don’t over
moderate conversations;
• Place thoughtful limits on content authoring, sourcing
and rating;
• Do not allow anonymity; The social network system
must integrate with other systems;
• Encourage freshness and frequency with regular
content updates by community leaders;
• Promote adoption and ongoing use by celebrating the
findings, activity and results of your network;
• Document what constitutes misuse and make it visible,
so the network becomes self-governing;
• Remember that these tools are user-driven by nature,
so the measure of success is participation;
• Choose a platform that is easy to use, proven and
intuitive [2].
There are few major networking sites mentioned as a
convenient tool for higher education. The most frequently
mentioned is ‘Facebook’ – a social networking site,
launched in February 2004. It may well be described as an
Internet social networking sensation. Initially restricted to
college campuses, it has now grown to more than 62
million users worldwide, comprising one percent of the
world’s population. “Facebook is a versatile social
networking website, allowing users to post messages on
their friends’ walls, share photos and video files, send
email and instant messages.” [14]. The second is
‘MySpace’ social networking website, established in 2003
in the USA. ‘MySpace’ became the most popular social
networking site in the United States in June 2006, yet it
was overtaken internationally by its main competitor
‘Facebook’. Both ‘MySpace’ and ‘Facebook’ are
innovative digital communication tools that surpass
traditional means of social interaction. [15]. Other big
player in the scene is ‘Windows Live’ service pack.
Windows live is the collective brand name for a set of
services and software products from Microsoft, accessible
from a browser. There are many more social networking
sites, providing similar services available in various
languages and interfaces. Yet, when trying to plan proper
social network performance, it is necessary to pay attention
to some software quality issues.
In academic literature there are many models and
frameworks to evaluate educational software quality. For
example, Plaza et al. (2009) suggest a framework
consisting of six quality dimensions: (1) functionality, (2)
reliability, (3) usability, (4) efficiency, (5) maintainability,
and (6) portability [16]. When thinking about open source
social networking popular sites, reliability, usability,
maintainability and portability do not apply. Usually these

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sites provide high quality reliable services that are user-
friendly and compliable with many operational systems
and internet browsers. Using social networks, users or
administrators do not need to worry about software
maintainability or portability, as it can be used anytime,
anywhere on any computer with internet connection via
any browser. So the main educational software quality
dimension that needs a wider discussion is social network
site functionality. Plaza et al. (2008) distinguished five
subcharacteristics defining functionality: (1) Suitability;
(2) Accuracy; (3) Interoperability; (4) Security; and (5)
Functional Compliance.
Authors define suitability as “The capacity of the
software product to provide an appropriate set of functions
for specified tasks and user objectives” [16]. When
thinking about a perfect ‘all in one’ academic social
network, at least four main objectives must be fulfilled: (1)
To provide academic service support and academic
information dissemination; (2) To enable student support
and communication; (3) To exalt social and cooperate
learning; (4) To provide achievement representation
ability. It is important, that all these functions would
comply in one secure and interoperable social networking
site. Meanwhile accuracy depends on administrators and
users, as social network content is user generated by
nature.
Concluding all the findings above, a conceptual
model of a perfect social networking site for higher
education was generated referring to functions, tools and
main software functional compliance criteria.
Model of Social Networking in Higher Education
Kennelly (2009) reports, that decision using online
social networking should be based on two criteria. First,
many traditional students should be likely comfortable
with an interface and its associated learning style. Second,
social networking sites have functionality, such as the
ability for users to link and group themselves, which is not
available in other common web-facilitated learning
environments such as course management systems [17].
According to Reynard (2008), social networking
essentially requires a less controlled, user-generated
environment, which challenges conventional views of the
effective ‘management’ of teaching and learning [13].
So, when trying to perform a successful academic
service support, it is necessary to make sure, that social
networking site would provide tools for grouping or
networking, enabling users to connect themselves in
learning networks and communicate. Communication tools
are the most important tools for academic information
dissemination. It is significant sharing event information or
providing student academic support, encouraging student
and teacher collaboration. Such specific social networking
tools as walls, events, discussions help to communicate a
message promptly and effectively. These tools may be
used by academic administration or by students themselves
to encourage informal communication and lead to ‘social
glue’.
Meanwhile Monahan et al. (2008) refer to a social
network, as “collaborative learning environment in virtual
reality that uses multimedia and provides communication
tools to support collaboration among students” [18, p.
1341]. So, social network learning environment has to be
enriched with asynchronous and synchronous
communication tools and multimedia environments, to
provide best performance in personal learning style and
encourage cooperate learning. To ease interactive
information sharing such tools as online data processing
tools, blogs, wikis are preferable. These tools provide a
possibility to form knowledge together. It is extremely
effective in group working and problem based learning
[19].
A different knowledge construct can be expressed by
personal profile or communication tools such as wikis or
blogs. These features enable users to present their
knowledge construct and express themselves in the virtual
world. Profile information also can be referred to as a way
to present user’s achievements [20].
A need to put all the academic achievements in one
place leads to a necessity of student’s e-portfolio creation.
Usually social networking sites do not have e-portfolio as a
special tool. In some cases students just use two different
tools for blogs and data storing places to create an
interpreted e-portfolio [20]. Thus it is important, that
students would have enough tools to create a professional
e-portfolio and present it on the personal profile.
Concluding the analysis above, a conceptual model
was constructed (see Fig. 1).
Academic
service
Cooperate
learning
Achievement
representation
Social glue
Knowlege
construct
Student support
„Backstage“
communication
FUNCTIONS TOOLS
E portfolio
Tools for sharing
experience,
events/walling
Online data
processing tools,
multimedi a,
blogs and wikis
Databases
CRITERIA
Integration with
university systems;
Ability for users to
link and group
themselves;
Comfortable interface;
Tools for personal
learning style;
Students profile
integration with
E.portfolio ability
Linking/Grouping/Networking
Communication tools
Fig. 1. Conceptual model
In the column ‘Functions’ there are presented four
main preferable functions of social networking in higher
education, that were distinguished in the literature analysis.
These functions merge, creating subfunctions that add
extra value to main functions. A need to enable these
functions and subfunctions initiate an overlook of specific
social networking site tools, is shown in the column
‘Tools’. Yet, linking and communication tools are required
to most of the functions and are significant in social
networking by nature. As may be seen in the column
‘Criteria’, every tool has compliance criteria that need to
be kept in mind when choosing a social networking site.
Conclusions
There are only few scholar papers on a social
networking application in higher education subject, mostly
based on case studies. Yet, concluding the findings of

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literature analysis, four main functions (or possibilities) of
social network usage in higher education may be
distinguished: academic service support; student support;
social and cooperate learning; and achievement
representation.
Based on these functions, a conceptual model of
social networking in higher education was constructed,
based on assumption, that learning software functionality
is the most important criterion when choosing a social
network for higher education.
Every function requires a specific set of social
network site tools, such as events, walling, online data
processing tools, multimedia, blogs, wikis and profiles.
Yet, the highest importance is its functional compliance
with communication and networking tools, to ensure best
communication, dissemination and learning performance
and support.
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The popularity of social networking sites has led educators to the idea of engaging learners with their studies. After reviewing the
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