Investigating Ways to Use Facebook at the University Level: A Delphi Study

Introduction Over the past decade SNSs (Social Network Sites) have grown exponentially. The SNS that has experienced the greatest growth and continues to be the most widely used around the world is Facebook. In 2009, the total number of active Facebook users stood at 150 million with half of those users reported to be logging in at least once a day (Zuckerberg, 2009). Worldwide, only Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo were larger Internet sites than Facebook at that time (Schonfeld, 2009). However, in terms of weekly U.S. traffic it did not take long for Facebook to overtake Google doing so in March 2010 with a reported membership exceeding 500 million (Hardawar, 2010). The growth of Facebook continued with membership increasing to 750 million members in mid 2011 (Facebook Press Release, Timeline). And, on October 4, 2012, Mark Zuckerberg (2012) announced that "there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month". Although the original intent of Facebook was to connect college students with one another, its worldwide impact can be seen by the fact that it has been translated into over 100 languages (Smith, 2010). In its inception only those with an approved email address with an ".edu" domain name were eligible. Due to this limitation, 18-24 year olds made up the original demographic. However, since Facebook has opened up to individuals outside of the ".edu" domain, other demographic areas are increasing rapidly (Facebook Press Release, Statistics); albeit in the U.S., the majority of SNS users continues to be teens and young adults (Lenhart, 2009). Going forward there does not appear to be any intention to limit its growth as Zuckerberg (2012) noted on the website, "I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too". Learning management systems (LMS) have been utilized in educational settings for many years. According to the Gilfus Education Group (2012), the top five LMSs for 2011-2012 are the following: Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Moodle, Adrenna Academic, and Sakai Open Academic Environment. All are designed to support the instructor and to allow some degree of collaboration between students. Moodle is open source and completely free whereas the latter two are built on open source platforms. Other standard communication methods include traditional e-mail, and communication platforms such as Google's gmail which includes instant messaging and video conferencing. Still, an argument can be made that for collaborative teaching and learning, SNSs such as Facebook, may be a better match for today's students than more traditional pedagogical/andragogical tools (Salavuo, 2008). First, students are comfortable communicating via an SNS because a large number are already using one in their personal lives. Second, students have come to expect a certain amount of media richness of their technologies, preferring videos, photographs, and graphics to be a part of their learning experience to enhance community building through increased interpersonal knowledge. Often times, a SNS will provide much greater and robust support for multimedia formats than traditional LMS. Third, through the creation of personal profiles students can potential identify others with similar interests and certain areas of expertise, leading to collaborative learning opportunities and sharing of ideas and knowledge. Fourth, with the explosion of mobile devices (e.g., smart phones, pad computing) students have a growing expectation of mobile access. Although some LMSs are now offering mobile applications (e.g., Blackboard, Moodle), functionally speaking, Facebook tends to be much more robust. To some degree they are simply web sites with a front-end that appears like an app, but not providing a true app experience, with full functionality, like the Facebook mobile app. Additionally, the Facebook mobile app is available for free, whereas some LMSs are moving away from providing a free app to charging a fee, unless the app is licensed by the school. …