Hlab

April 8, 2023

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Social Media Enhanced Studying and Learning in Higher Education:

Students’ Attitudes,

Motivations and

Preferred System Designs

Thumas Miilumäki

thumas.miilumaki@tut.fi

Hypermedia Laboratory

Tampere University of Technology

Finland

April 8, 2023

Madrid, Spain

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Tampere University of

Technology (TUT)

Hlab

April 8, 2023

IN THIS PRESENTATION

• Social networking site TUT Circle• Backgrounds

• Initial research• Overview• Usage

• Research results• Recent development

• Current research on social media usage in higher education

• Campus Conexus ESF project• Preliminary research results• Further analysis

• Summary & Discussion

2

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

INITIAL BACKGROUNDS

• A social network site in education• The idea of connecting web communities to

teaching, studying and learning is quite rational because the official systems supporting studying do not normally include any social properties

• In many cases social aspects are not in any way part of the nature of particular systems designed to support studying and learning

• Social media can be seen as one answer to this problem

3

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

PREVIOUS RESEARCH

• Research data and data analysis (Silius et al., 2010a)• In spring 2009 data was collected from ten hypermedia

students at Tampere University of Technology (TUT) regarded as early adopters using insight into method in which the students answered two different frame stories as essays

• The stories discussed about aspects increasing and decreasing students’ motivation for study orientated social network site usage

• In data analysis according to Grounded Theory material based coding and categorization were used

• The primary results• Totally empty environment gains no content• Positive experiences increase the system usage• The most importantly the system should provide special

added value for users; there is no need for another facebook

4

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

“Students are not so

interested in joining a

networking service that

lacks of users to be

connected with.”

”When users’ first

experiences of system

usage were positive the

information about the

system started to spread

to other students, for

example, in coffee table

discussions.”

Hlab

April 8, 2023

MOTIVATING / NON-MOTIVATING

5

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Motivating Non-motivatingBackground and reputation of system

VoluntarinessFree of chargePositive usage

experiencesGeneral popularityTrendyFashion craze

Narrow focusBad or dubious

reputationUnknown systemUninspiring

Basic idea and targets

Centralization of information

CollaborationSocial networkingImprovement of

communicationConnecting studying and

leisure

Nothing newEverything about

anything in one place

Similarity to other services available

Usage needs NetworkingSocial interactionEnriched user profileUniversity related

information sharingStudy supportConnecting users with

similar interests etc.

Irrelevant featuresThe system is not

supported to be adjusted to individual user behavior

Lack of interactivity

Functionalities User-to-user relationsMessagingGroupsDiscussionsResource sharingManaging events (incl.

calendar)Collaborative content

production

Complex widgetsIrrelevant games

Motivating Non-motivatingContent Information about

student lifeUniversity related

contentGeneral discussion board

with clear structure and relevant topics (e.g., living, studying, jobs, buy or sell, …)

Study schedules

Lack of contentToo much informationIrrelevant or too

specific discussion topics (e.g., discussion about one single course etc.)

Spam messages

Usability Easy to useClear and simplified user

interface

Too complex structureContent cannot be

found easilyLong chains of

navigationLayout Eye-catching layout

Trendy themeMachine-likeLack of pictures and

imagesTechnical sustainability and flexibility

Fast and stable systemFault toleranceFully functionalOpen interfacesUser agent independence

User feels like a test user

Unstable systemParallel systems cannot

be synchronizedLack of mobile version

Moderation Continuous surveillance and development

Bug fixingResponses to feedbackShort service breaks

(prior notice sent to users)

Slow and/or inaccessible administrator

Lack of surveillanceNo controlLong service breaksFeedback is ignored

Hlab

April 8, 2023

A user dashboard in TUT Circle

TUT CIRCLE

6

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

TUT Circle is a web

based environment for

students offering

customized tools for

enhancing social aspects

of student life at TUT.

Through social and

functional interven-tions

features enhancing social

interaction and supporting

studies are brought into

the system.

TUT Circle uses an open

source CMF (Content

Management Framework)

Drupal®. With specific

modules the system can

be tailored to various

needs.

Profile

Messaging

Discussion

Groups• Study programs• Tutoring groups• Clubs etc.• Mathematics Clinic (supporting first year mathematics studies)

Activity feed

Functions

Contents

Hlab

April 8, 2023

TUT CIRCLE USE SCENARIOS

• TUT Circle is focused on supporting social interactions between TUT related individuals and groups

• The common interests are related to studying and study life in general• Student groups (e.g., study programs, tutors, freshmen, etc.)• Courses (e.g., Hypermedia Programming)• International Studies• Hobbies (e.g., poker, music, etc.)• Student life and living (e.g., student residences)

• To support course administration TUT Circle groups include effective tools for internal communication and collaboration

• In Mathematics Clinic TUT Circle is used for communication and as a virtual study environment where students can ask questions about mathematics. Peer learners an/or an online tutor may answer the questions asked. JsMath package enables mathematics representations in TUT Circle

• Online Publication Development is a course for students at TUT and University of Tampere (UTA). Shibboleth integration enables system usage for students from both universities.

7

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

WEB SERVICE QUALITY EVALUATION• In fall 2009 data was collected from 38 hypermedia students

regarded also as early adopters (Silius et al., 2010b)• They were asked to sign up for TUT Circle and analyze aspects, functions, or

features motivating users to use the service• In evaluation students used a specific WeSQu tool and its User Motivation

section• WeSQu is a web-based tool for evaluating web service quality, e.g., in

terms of reliability, accessibility, visual design and community properties• The total amount of text data collected was 160 pages• The data was analyzed using theme analysis

• Theme analysis is suitable for research pursuing more profound knowledge about a phenomenon and having theory based data collected

• Results in a nutshell• TUT Circle was seen to increase a sense of belonging, because in the system

it is “easy to discuss local issues and get to know the people at TUT”• Wellman (2002) refers to this phenomenon as “glocalization”; the ability

of the Internet to both expand user’s social contacts and bind them more closely to the place where they live

8

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

• Interventions to activate the system usage and motivate users to produce contents in TUT Circle are designed and implemented

• As can be seen in the figure below the usage level can be enhanced by interventions

• It is fairly easy to implement successful interventions of any kind to increase activity in the system for a short period of time, but successful interventions steering system usage to be more self-oriented are much more difficult to design and execute (Miilumäki, 2010.)

9

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS

• In TUT Circle there is a tool that is used to collect log data in XML (Extensible Markup Language) format about different network actions

• The data can be used for Social Network Analysis (SNA) that enables enriched network information production

• SNA was used to analyze network evolution during the intervention process

• Results and observations• The network did not become more connected when new users were

introduced into the system• Most of the users were connected with their friends, but the

interventions did not significantly influence new friendship creation

• Basically users only participated in activity related to the intervention and ignored other features offered by the system

10

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

SNA visualizations of a

social network in TUT

Circle (Miilumäki, 2010)

Hlab

April 8, 2023

TUT CIRCLE DEVELOPMENT

• Recently TUT Circle has been further developed in terms of its usability and tools

• The primary target is to make TUT Circle more versatile so that it would serve different needs of usage and would reduce requirements of content production in parallel social media services

• Aggregation of different social media contents in TUT Circle instead of developing separate focused tools

• Using specific tags contents outside TUT Circle can be included in some TUT Circle group, e.g.,

• YouTube videos• Flickr and Picasa photos and images• Del.icio.us bookmarks

• Furthermore, status updates in TUT Circle can be submitted to Twitter and public content may be announced in TUT Circle facebook page

11

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

SOCIAL MEDIA AGGREGATION

Twitter

Flickr &

Picasa

Del.icio.us

YouTube

12

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

CAMPUS CONEXUS

• Department of Mathematics and Hypermedia Laboratory at TUT are working in national R&D project Campus Conexus funded by ESF (European Social Fund)

• The primary target of Campus Conexus project is to strengthen procedures and atmosphere that enhance and encourage individuals to study, learn and teach

• It has been emphasized to develop procedures that support students’ attachment to studying, learning and expertise

• Overall goal is to prevent university level students’ alienation from study community and general social exclusion

• The word ‘conexus’ comes from Latin and it means ‘knit together’

• In the project TUT studies and develops social media service concept together with University of Tampere (UTA)

13

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

RESEARCH ON SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE IN STUDY CONTEXT• Research is focusing on finding key aspects of

interactive social media services that are experienced to be useful in attaching students to university community

• The research questions are:• What kind of web services university students

prefer to use and find useful for both official and unofficial interaction in their study community?

• What kind of significances students emphasize from university study attachment and communality point of view?

• The data was collected both in TUT and UTA using insight into method (Annala et al., 2010.)

14

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

PRELIMINARY RESULTS

• The data analysis is still in progress but some preliminary results have already been published and discussed

• The same aspects that were discovered in previous studies were also emphasized in this data

• These were basically focusing on system usability, flexibility and adaptability

• Social media should be used in the way that the added value could not be achieved by using current services

• In terms of study attachment different study supportive contents and specific tools providing individual study assistance were found more important than in the previous studies

• It seems that students are more and more preferring, for example, the usage of web based collaborative authoring tools in group working

• In studying it should be supported that time and place are not restricting work process

15

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

FURTHER ANALYSIS

• The data will be analyzed more closely and fine grained during spring 2011

• Social media solutions enhancing study attachment will be pin pointed

• The results will be published and new features and use models of social media services in study context will be implemented and piloted at TUT among other Finnish universities during 2011-2013

• The pilots are focusing on social media usage with various interest groups in higher education

16

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

SUMMARY & DISCUSSION

• Crucial properties of web communities are functionalities supporting networking, community evolution and activity

• Functionalities should be usable and flexible• Services are offering various means supporting community members to

connect each other and communicate, for example, private and public messaging, commenting, updating statuses, feeds of new contents, popularity listings and different user search options

• A challenge for a new web community is still how to motivate users to content provision and production

• Content aggregation support enhances content enrichment• Moreover, even if there was a need for a community, only a part of registered

users really would start to use the networking service• For learning purposes the added value should be clear

• Clearly interventions can be used to enhance network activity• A well-designed intervention can increase the usage level significantly, but the

long-term effects to motivate students to use a social networking system in the context of studying requires obvious added values for users to be reached through the intervention process

• The intervention itself does not feed motivation, but it certainly can activate users• Study support should be available in various means, not only contents

17

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH AT TUT

• In Hypermedia Laboratory at TUT works a multidisciplinary research group in several research projects studying social networks and social media tools usage in different scenarios

• Following researchers have been involved to the research described here and have provided their contribution to support this presentation

• Prof., Seppo Pohjolainen• M.Ed., Kirsi Silius• M.Sc., Jukka Huhtamäki• Ph.M., Anne-Maritta Tervakari• M.Sc., Teemo Tebest

• Following persons are acknowledged• M.Sc., Joonas Meriläinen• M.Sc., Jarno Marttila• M.Sc., Meri Kailanto• M.Sc., Tommi Perälä• M.Sc., Jussi Kangas

18

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

Hlab

April 8, 2023

THANK YOU

Questions?

Comments?

19

www.tut.fi/hypermedia

PRESENTER

Thumas MiilumäkiResearcher, M.Sc. (Tech.)

Tampere University of TechnologyHypermedia Laboratoryfirstname.lastname@tut.fi

Hlab

April 8, 2023

REFERENCES

Annala, J., Svärd, P., Silius, K. & Miilumäki, T. (2010). Opiskelija ja yhteisölliset verkkopalvelut. Research report slides. http://www.campusconexus.fi/Portals/conexus/dokumentit/Campus_Conexus-09122010-yhdistetyt_esitykset_20101210.pdf

Miilumäki, T. (2010). Web-pohjaisten sosiaalisten verkostojen analyysimenetelmät. Social Network Analysis Methods in Web-based Networking Systems. Master of Science Thesis. Tampere: Tampere University.

Silius, K., Miilumäki, T., Huhtamäki, J., Tebest, T., Meriläinen, J. & Pohjolainen, S. (2010a). Students’ Motivations for Social Media Enhanced Studying and Learning. In Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal (KM&EL), Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 51-67.

Silius, K., Miilumäki, T., Huhtamäki, J., Tebest, T., Meriläinen, J. & Pohjolainen, S. (2010b). Social Media Enhanced Studying and Learning in Higher Education. In Education Engineering (EDUCON), 2010 IEEE, Conference Proceedings, 14-16 April 2010, Madrid, Spain, pp. 137-143.

Wellman, B. (2002). Designing the Internet for a networked society: Little boxes, glocalization, and networked individualism. In Communications of the ACM, 45(5), pp. 91-96.

20

www.tut.fi/hypermedia