Facebook® and academic performance

Kirschner, P. A., & Karpinski, A. (2010). Facebook® and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(6),1237-1245.There is much talk of a change in modern youth – often referred to as digital natives or Homo Zappiens – with respect to their ability to simultaneously process multiple channels of information. In other words, kids today can multitask. Unfortunately for proponents of this position, there is much empirical documentation concerning the negative effects of attempting to simultaneously process different streams of information showing that such behavior leads to both increased study time to achieve learning parity and an increase in mistakes while processing information than those who are sequentially or serially processing that same information. This article presents the preliminary results of a descriptive and exploratory survey study involving Facebook use, often carried out simultaneously with other study activities, and its relation to academic performance as measured by self-reported Grade Point Average (GPA) and hours spent studying per week. Results show that Facebook® users reported having lower GPAs and spend fewer hours per week studying than nonusers

A Cross-cultural Qualitative Examination of Social-networking Sites and Academic Performance

AbstractSocial-networking site (SNS) use, specifically Facebook®, has remained a controversial subject for many educators and media. Recent studies discuss the negative and positive impacts of SNSs on students’ academic performance. This qualitative study examines the impact of SNSs on students’ academic performance via open-ended survey responses in the United States (US) and Europe. Responses were examined using the Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA). Findings from this study indicate the differences in perceptions between students in the US and Europe. Overall, common themes indicated that the majority of students claimed they feel SNSs do not impact their grades. Many European students (32.0%) indicated that they use SNSs for their school work, whereas 31.7% of US students mentioned being a responsible student

Understanding Perceptions of Problematic Facebook Use: When People Experience Negative Life Impact and a Lack of Control

While many people use social network sites to connect with friends and family, some feel that their use is problematic, seriously affecting their sleep, work, or life. Pairing a survey of 20,000 Facebook users measuring perceptions of problematic use with behavioral and demographic data, we examined Facebook activities associated with problematic use as well as the kinds of people most likely to experience it. People who feel their use is problematic are more likely to be younger, male, and going through a major life event such as a breakup. They spend more time on the platform, particularly at night, and spend proportionally more time looking at profiles and less time browsing their News Feeds. They also message their friends more frequently. While they are more likely to respond to notifications, they are also more likely to deactivate their accounts, perhaps in an effort to better manage their time. Further, they are more likely to have seen content about social media or phone addiction. Notably, people reporting problematic use rate the site as more valuable to them, highlighting the complex relationship between technology use and well-being. A better understanding of problematic Facebook use can inform the design of context-appropriate and supportive tools to help people become more in control.Comment: CHI 201

Genesis of Altmetrics or Article-level Metrics for Measuring Efficacy of Scholarly Communications: Current Perspectives

The article-level metrics (ALMs) or altmetrics becomes a new trendsetter in recent times for measuring the impact of scientific publications and their social outreach to intended audiences. The popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin and social bookmarks such as Mendeley and CiteULike are nowadays widely used for communicating research to larger transnational audiences. In 2012, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment got signed by the scientific and researchers communities across the world. This declaration has given preference to the ALM or altmetrics over traditional but faulty journal impact factor (JIF)-based assessment of career scientists. JIF does not consider impact or influence beyond citations count as this count reflected only through Thomson Reuters' Web of Science database. Furthermore, JIF provides indicator related to the journal, but not related to a published paper. Thus, altmetrics now becomes an alternative metrics for performance assessment of individual scientists and their contributed scholarly publications. This paper provides a glimpse of genesis of altmetrics in measuring efficacy of scholarly communications and highlights available altmetric tools and social platforms linking altmetric tools, which are widely used in deriving altmetric scores of scholarly publications. The paper thus argues for institutions and policy makers to pay more attention to altmetrics based indicators for evaluation purpose but cautions that proper safeguards and validations are needed before their adoption

Cyberbullying Detection System with Multiple Server Configurations

Due to the proliferation of online networking, friendships and relationships - social communications have reached a whole new level. As a result of this scenario, there is an increasing evidence that social applications are frequently used for bullying. State-of-the-art studies in cyberbullying detection have mainly focused on the content of the conversations while largely ignoring the users involved in cyberbullying. To encounter this problem, we have designed a distributed cyberbullying detection system that will detect bullying messages and drop them before they are sent to the intended receiver. A prototype has been created using the principles of NLP, Machine Learning and Distributed Systems. Preliminary studies conducted with it, indicate a strong promise of our approach

Achievable Rates and Training Overheads for a Measured LOS Massive MIMO Channel

This paper presents achievable uplink (UL) sumrate predictions for a measured line-of-sight (LOS) massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) (MMIMO) scenario and illustrates the trade-off between spatial multiplexing performance and channel de-coherence rate for an increasing number of base station (BS) antennas. In addition, an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) case study is formed which considers the 90% coherence time to evaluate the impact of MMIMO channel training overheads in high-speed LOS scenarios. It is shown that whilst 25% of the achievable zero-forcing (ZF) sumrate is lost when the resounding interval is increased by a factor of 4, the OFDM training overheads for a 100-antenna MMIMO BS using an LTE-like physical layer could be as low as 2% for a terminal speed of 90m/s.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

The impact of professional learning on the teaching identities of higher education lecturers

Higher Education is currently undergoing some of the most profound changes in its history. Against a backdrop of increasing marketization, rising levels of student debt and far greater fully online offerings, the higher education lecturer is grappling with new ways of working and high expectations of teaching quality. This 3 year qualitative study based in The Open University UK investigates the ways in which HE distance learning lecturers are approaching professional development and learning, identifying what type of learning may be most effective in creating and sustaining an online teaching identity. The study also examines ways in which resistance discourse is shaping these identities and practices revealing emerging re- conceptualisations of what it means to be an effective and well-motivated distance learning lecturer. The investigation uses a framework for identity analysis which analyses professional identity via the expression of hegemonies, phenomenological, narrative articulations of identity, and a post-modern, constructivist view of identity which is shaped by social interactions and communities of practice. It highlights the importance of personal agency in identity formation. The results revealed a number of insights into the ways in which a combination of resistance discourse, professional learning and reflections from student interactions are shaping new understandings of professional knowledge in this context