Using social network sites in Higher Education: An experience in business studies

In the past 5 years the impact of Web 2.0 in new generations has been remarkably significant (Pew Research Center, 2010). This paper reports on an experience in the use of Social Network Sites (SNS) to support student involvement with the subject and to develop basic skills. According to students’ opinion, the experience was deemed as positive. They considered that the experience contributed to a higher engagement with the subject and a deeper collaboration with other students and teaching staff. As a result, the majority of students would prefer the use of SNS as a first option if they had to enrol again in the subject. Regarding the relationships between academic performance and use of the SNS, two different student profiles were identified based on usage patterns of the platform. Students with a more intensive use of the site showed a significantly better performance than students with a low usage profile.This work was partially supported by the Junta de Andalucía – FEDER (Proyectos de Excelencia: SEJ-02670

Are Friends Overrated? A Study for the Social Aggregator Digg.com

Part 6: Social NetworksInternational audienceThe key feature of online social networks is the ability of users to become active, make friends and interact with those around them. Such interaction is typically perceived as critical to these platforms; therefore, a significant share of research has investigated the characteristics of social links, friendship relations, community structure, searching for the role and importance of individual members.In this paper, we present results from a multi-year study of the online social network Digg.com, indicating that the importance of friends and the friend network in the propagation of information is less than originally perceived. While we note that users form and maintain social structure, the importance of these links and their contribution is very low: Even nearly identically interested friends are only activated with a probability of 2% and only in 50% of stories that became popular we find evidence that the social ties were critical to the spread

Are Friends Overrated?: A Study for the Social Aggregator Digg.com

The key feature of online social networks is the ability of users to become active, make friends and interact with those around them. Such interaction is typically perceived as critical to these platforms; therefore, a significant share of research has investigated the characteristics of social links, friendship relations, community structure, searching for the role and importance of individual members. In this paper, we present results from a multi-year study of the online social network Digg.com, indicating that the importance of friends and the friend network in the propagation of information is less than originally perceived. While we note that users form and maintain social structure, the importance of these links and their contribution is very low: Even nearly identically interested friends are only activated with a probability of 2% and only in 50% of stories that became popular we find evidence that the social ties were critical to the spread.Network Architectures & Services (NAS)Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Politik - gefällt mir?! Soziale Online-Netzwerke als neue Quelle politischer Information

Mit dem Aufkommen des Internets steht den Deutschen seit nunmehr 20 Jahren ein Medium zur Verfügung, das eine zuvor unbekannte Fülle an leicht zugänglichen Informationen bietet. Entsprechend groß waren auch von Anfang an die damit verknüpften Erwartungen. Mit dem erweiterten Angebot würden sich das Informations- und letztlich das Partizipationsverhalten der Bürger verändern (Margretts 2013, S. 421; Jungherr und Schoen 2013, S. 29). Das Internet sollte aber nicht bloß mehr Informationen und Partizipationsmöglichkeiten zur Verfügung stellen, sondern Menschen aus unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Schichten mit politischen Informationen versorgen und so einen Beitrag leisten, bestehende Ungleichheiten in der Gesellschaft aufzuheben oder zumindest abzuschwächen