The SNAP Platform: social networking for academic purposes

Purpose – This paper aims to introduce an enterprise‐wide Web 2.0 learning support platform – SNAP, developed at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia.Design/methodology/approach – Pointing to the evolution of the social web, the paper discusses the potential for the development of e‐learning platforms that employ constructivist, connectivist, and participatory pedagogies and actively engage the student population. Social networking behaviours and peer‐learning strategies, along with knowledge management through guided folksonomies, provide the back‐bone of a social systems approach to learning support.Findings – The development of a cloud‐based read‐write enterprise platform can extend the responsiveness of the learning institution to its students and to future e‐learning innovations.Originality/value – The full potential of e‐learning platforms for the development of learning communities of practice can now be increasingly realised. The SNAP Platform is a step in this direction.

[1]  Robert Godwin-Jones.  Tag Clouds in the Blogosphere: Electronic Literacy and Social Networking , 2006 .

[2]  Denis Gillet,et al.  Social Software Modeling and Mashup based on Actors, Activities and Assets , 2008 .

[3]  Hendrik Huijser,et al.  Refocusing Multiliteracies for the Net Generation , 2006 .

[4]  George Siemens.  Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age , 2004 .

[5]  Malcolm Brown,et al.  The NetGens 2.0: Clouds on the Horizon , 2009 .

[6]  Dai Griffiths,et al.  Distributing education services to personal and institutional systems using Widgets , 2008 .

[7]  Jacques van der Meer,et al.  Shifting the Balance in First-Year Learning Support: From Staff Instruction to Peer-Learning Primacy. , 2008 .

[8]  Ronald Maier,et al.  Institutionalised collaborative tagging as an instrument for managing the maturing learning and knowledge resources , 2008 .

[9]  Yochai Benkler,et al.  The wealth of networks: how social production transforms markets and freedom , 2006 .

[10]  Chris Kenyon,et al.  From andragogy to heutagogy , 2000 .

[11]  Matthias Jarke,et al.  The future of e-learning: a shift to knowledge networking and social software , 2007, Int. J. Knowl. Learn..

[12]  Paulo N. M. Sampaio,et al.  Blended Peer-Assisted Learning Platform: Improving Learning Outcomes with a Collaborative Environment , 2011 .

[13]  Gottfried Vossen,et al.  Evolution of learning folksonomies: social tagging in e-learning repositories , 2008 .

[14]  Fabien L. Gandon,et al.  Bridging ontologies and folksonomies to leverage knowledge sharing on the social Web: A brief survey , 2008, 2008 23rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering - Workshops.

[15]  Richard K. Ladyshewsky,et al.  Peer assisted learning and blogging: A strategy to promote reflective practice during clinical fieldwork , 2008 .

[16]  David J. Staley.  Managing the Platform: Higher Education and the Logic of Wikinomics. , 2009 .

[17]  David Griffiths,et al.  Using Widgets to Provide Portable Services for IMS Learning Design , 2008 .

[18]  Mathias Lux,et al.  From folksonomies to ontologies: employing wisdom of the crowds to serve learning purposes , 2007, Int. J. Knowl. Learn..

[19]  Miltiadis D. Lytras,et al.  Exploiting semantic web and ontologies for personalised learning services: towards semantic web-enabled learning portals for real learning experiences , 2008, Int. J. Knowl. Learn..

[20]  Hendrik Huijser,et al.  Peer Assisted Learning in Fleximode: Developing an Online Learning Community , 2008 .

[21]  Bradford D. Wheeler,et al.  Above-Campus Services: Shaping the Promise of Cloud Computing for Higher Education. , 2009 .