Investigating the knowledge sharing activities among postgraduates students using social media tools

Knowledge sharing is a process where individuals mutually exchange their knowledge and jointly create new knowledge. Recently, it is found that besides face-to-face interactions, students also share their knowledge through social media tools. Social media is considered as the key value in the campus to facilitate knowledge sharing and the main tasks in order to support the daily communication. Many dimensions of knowledge sharing in social media environments have not yet been examined. Also many questions are still unanswered and need to be explored across different social media tools. Thus, this research aims to explore the knowledge sharing activities among local and international postgraduate students at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) as well as find the benefits and barriers through using social media tools during sharing knowledge. Data were collected through qualitative approach. A total of 12 postgraduate students were interviewed and received answers from them through semistructure interview. Interpretive analysis method was used to find the themes by using Nvivo software. The results for this study included four sections based on Nonaka and Takeuchi theory, in the socialization section the findings show the activities for students include exchange experience and perspective as well as confirmed the important of social media in overcome time, geographical distance and cost that is a barriers to share knowledge as well as provide more confident to share ideas for students. As well as, some barriers that still issues to sharing knowledge such as lack of math-symbol and culture. In externalization section, the findings show the design the diagram and document the files as activities as well as show the important of using social media in documentation to save the files and diagram online as well as enhance English language and protect from viruses. While the barriers include uploading limitation. In combination section the findings show the modification and reflection as activities among group member and show the benefit of social media during combine the work for assignment and project is easy to use and saving paper cost. While, the barriers is downloading limitation. In internalization section the findings show the review and reflection as activities among student. The benefits include create new idea and acquiring in depth understanding while lack of personal interaction and late in answering as barriers to share knowledge. This study contributed by using the Nonaka and Takeuchi model with higher educational institutions. In the same context, there is few empirical studies focused on the IT with share knowledge, therefore this research sought to add information into the literature by shed light the barriers and the benefits through utilize the new technologies for share know among the team wor

Level of integration of mobile device technology in teaching and learning in universities in Botswana

The study investigated the level of integration of mobile device technology in teaching and learning in Botswana universities. Botswana is one of the few African countries with a strong and stable economy and a high prevalence of technological gadgets that include mobile phones, tablets, and laptops, among others, in use in the population. Despite the prevalence of these technological gadgets, not much is known about the level of integration of technology in teaching and learning in universities in Botswana. A quantitative approach that employed a structured questionnaire for data collection was used in a study that included a sample of 360 lecturers from five out of eight selected universities in Botswana. The results of the study showed that negative attitudes of lecturers towards the integration of technology continue to be one of the major contributory factors in the low levels of technology integration in teaching and learning in universities in Botswana. The study also revealed that high Internet costs, as well as slow Internet connectivity, are some of the main challenges contributing to the slow pace of technology integration in universities in Botswana. Results further showed that despite the high prevalence of mobile devices, desktops remain the main technological gadgets used during teaching and learning at universities in Botswana.Curriculum and Instructional Studie

A framework for providing mobile centric services to students at higher education institutions : the case of open distance learning

In developing countries, the mobile phone market has matured in terms of subscription, penetration and mobile centric1 services. In turn, people have integrated mobile phones into their daily lives. The interaction opportunities that have evolved in business and social life have given students at Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) grounds to anticipate similar opportunities within their learning environments. In the context of developing countries, students primarily access information through mobile phones and there seems to be a disconnection between how HEI provide informational services and how students want to access the services. Therefore, HEIs are challenged with shifting from their traditional information distribution practices into integrating mobile centric services. Literature describes several models of providing mobile centric services in learning settings but there is a paucity of research that address the disconnection between students’ mobile centric needs and expectations against the HEIs’ provision of such services. Therefore, this study proposes a Framework for providing mobile centric services to students at HEIs in Open Distance e-Learning (ODeL) context in South Africa. The potential contribution of the framework is that it can facilitate strategic planning and implementation of mobile centric services whilst ensuring the needed synergies with students and academics. The research is grounded in interpretive philosophy and was undertaken as a single case study. The case study employed mixed method design for data collection. The advantage of mixed method design is that it enables both qualitative and quantitative data to be collected from a variety of sources and triangulation of results to get a complete picture of the phenomenon under study. The research was undertaken in four phases. Phase 1 of the study was a literature analysis carried out to identify the components for providing mobile centric services that facilitate students with information access and interaction. The objective was to provide a conceptual framework that would direct the search for evidence and organise the results. Phase 2 of the study employed the conceptual framework developed in Phase 1 to identify the units of analysis and to design the data collection instruments. Phase 3 of the study focused on collecting data within a single case study with embedded units of analysis. Data collection included Policy document analysis, Tool observation analysis, Student surveys and Lecturer interviews. The data collected from the case study was analysed with the view of enhancing the components of the conceptual framework developed in Phase 1. The enhancement of the components of the conceptual framework carried out in Phase 3 directed the development of the Framework for providing mobile centric services to students at HEIs in ODeL context in South Africa as presented in Phase 4. This adds new knowledge in addressing the literature gap between the mobile centric needs and expectations of students and the provision of mobile centric services at HEIs. The framework has practical value in that its components can guide HEIs in determining the mobile centric readiness of their institutions, the needs of the stakeholders, the context of use, the identification of mobile centric resources and the managing of constraints. Mobile centric refers to the preference of accessing and interacting with information services through a mobile device such as a mobile phone.ComputingPh. D. (Information Systems