Social Computing and Students

This session reports on a study exploring the relationship between the use of social networking applications and campus life. Online survey data from 3,000 first-year students living on campus describes how students use Facebook to create academic and social identities. We will discuss the institutional implications of social networking on recruitment, retention, and campus academic technology.

Today's technology enables users to form and join communities of common interest to learn and share information. In opposition to the privileged learning spaces of higher education, social media encourage learners to seek out their own answers and construct knowledge as a community rather than as individuals. Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and Second Life offer new learning spaces, but how do they fit into the learning expectations of institutions?

 This ECAR roadmap synthesizes the important issues and recommended actions drawn from The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008, by Gail Salaway and Judith Borreson Caruso, with Mark R. Nelson. This 2008 ECAR research study is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 ECAR studies of students and information technology. The study is based on quantitative data from a spring 2008 survey of  27,317 freshmen and seniors at 90 four-year institutions and eight two-year institutions; student focus groups that included input from 75 students at four institutions; and analysis of qualitative data from 5,877 written responses to open-ended questions. In addition to studying student ownership, experience, behaviors, preferences, and skills with respect to information technologies, the 2008 study also includes a special focus on student participation in social networking sites.

Citation for this work: Caruso, Judith Borreson and Gail Salaway. “The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008 Roadmap” (Roadmap). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

This 2008 ECAR research study is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 ECAR studies of students and information technology. The study is based on quantitative data from a spring 2008 survey of 27,317 freshmen and seniors at 90 four-year institutions and eight two-year institutions; student focus groups that included input from 75 students at four institutions; and analysis of qualitative data from 5,877 written responses to open-ended questions. In addition to studying student ownership, experience, behaviors, preferences, and skills with respect to information technologies, the 2008 study also includes a special focus on student participation in social networking sites.

Citation for this work: Salaway, Gail and Caruso, Judith B., with Mark R. Nelson. The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008 (Research Study, Vol. 8). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

This document presents the key findings of The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008, by Gail Salaway and Judith Borreson Caruso, with Mark R. Nelson. This 2008 ECAR research study is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 ECAR studies of students and information technology. The study is based on quantitative data from a spring 2008 survey of  27,317 freshmen and seniors at 90 four-year institutions and eight two-year institutions; student focus groups that included input from 75 students at four institutions; and analysis of qualitative data from 5,877 written responses to open-ended questions. In addition to studying student ownership, experience, behaviors, preferences, and skills with respect to information technologies, the 2008 study also includes a special focus on student participation in social networking sites.

Citation for this work: Caruso, Judith Borreson and Gail Salaway. “The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008—Key Findings” (Key Findings). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

A new Web site brings social networking and ad revenues to the traditional note-taking service, but the model could raise copyright issues.

Over the past decade, colleges and universities have increasingly turned to the web to increase student access, expand course offerings, and reach out to adult learners through online courses. The growth of distance and online education has been mirrored by a similar explosion in social software tools such as Facebook, Second Life, blogs, wikis, Flickr, and a host of Web 2.0 competitors that offer new ways for us to learn with and from each other. As our Web 2.0 toolbox grows, so do faculty and administrator concerns about control, privacy, assessment, and the effectiveness of these tools in the classroom.

In this seminar, Anderson will highlight an educational model for distance and online learning that leverages social software to help both learners and educators determine the most effective tool and granularity of application for their learning needs. He will also demonstrate a number of current and emerging tools and share practices that promise to help us learn from and with each other with an emphasis on social learning that includes groups, networks, and the collective.

Students expect their university’s network to meet their academic and personal needs. So how can network administrators cope with a student body whose network needs for self-expression, learning, and creativity outpace the requirements of academic departments or (institutional) business practices? Is it possible (or just wishful thinking) to predict their demands? During this session, we will identify a few trends seen on today’s information-communication-technology landscape and address why we must continuously seek alternative and more efficient ways to meet the ICT services of tomorrow’s students.

RavenDesk is a web application through which students share conceptual connections between courses. Students thus build a view of their own and their campus’s intellectual life by exposing the interrelationships between courses. An ELI edition for conference presentations will also be available. See http://www.patrickgmj.net/project/eli-ravendesk.