How widely is Facebook used within higher education? And does ‘liking’ a university’s Facebook page really signify engagement between the student and the institution? Brian Kelly looks at whether the social networking service should be viewed as a digital mailing list, or if it has a role to play as a platform for the development of new services

Kelly, Brian

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LSE Research Online

blo gs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impacto fsocialsciences/2012/06/19/facebook-universities-continue-grow/by Blog Admin June 19, 2012What’s next, as Facebook use in UK universit ies continues to grow?How widely is Facebook used within higher education? And does ‘liking’ a university’s Facebookpage really signify engagement between the student and the institution? Brian Kelly looks atwhether the social networking service should be viewed as a digital mailing list, or if it has a roleto play as a platform for the development of new services.Facebook Usage for Russell Group Universit iesIn order to gather evidence to support discussions on the relevance of  use of  Facebook inthe higher education sector a survey of  Facebook usage, determined by links f orinstitutional pages, has been carried out f or the 20 Russell Group universit ies.  This survey f ollows onf rom previous surveys carried in in January and September 2011 which will enable trends to bedetected. Note that the f ull data f rom the f ollowing table is available as a Google Spreadsheet.Note: The data for the surveys was collected on 11 January 2011, 25 September  2011 (estimate) and 16 May2012. In brief , in a period of  eight months we have seen an increase in the number of  ‘likes’ f or the twenty UKRussell Group Universit ies of  over 432,300 users with the largest increase, of  almost 248,000 occurring atthe University of  Oxf ord. The largest percentage increase in that t ime has taken place at University ofGlasgow, which has seen a growth of  1,346 per cent f rom 1,860 to 27,149 and UCL which has seen agrowth of  679 per cent f rom 4,346 to 33,493.The overall trends are illustrated in the accompanying histogram. As can be seen this shows a signif icantgrowth in the overall number of  Facebook likes across the Russell Group universit ies.It should also be noted that according to Russell Group University Web site “half a million students areenrolled at Russell Group universities – one in five of all higher education students in the UK“. Although thenumbers of  Facebook likes will include members of  staf f  and other interested parties, the data does seemto suggest that a signif icant proportion of  students are using Facebook.DiscussionI suspect that social media consultants who advise the higher education sector will f ind the evidencepresented in this post usef ul in demonstrating the importance of  Facebook. However some caveats needto be pointed out:There may be signif icant growth when six f ormers are deciding which universit ies to apply to.  The‘liking’ of  a university may provide a bookmark which is not an indication of  engagement with theinstitution.New students may like their new institution’s Facebook page when they arrive, but may not use theservice during their t ime at the institution.Students may not unlike their institution’s Facebook page when they graduate, meaning that thenumber of  Facebook likes will include people who have lef t the institution and may no longer use theservice or have an interest in the inf ormation provided.In addition to the need to the interpretation of  the data there will also be a need to make policy decisionswhich should be inf ormed by such evidence, but may not need to be determined by the evidence.  It may bethat Facebook can be regarded in a similar way to mailing lists: people use them and gain some value f romthem but development work is likely to take place using other technologies. Alternatively the popularity ofFacebook may mean that that it has a role to play as a platf orm f or development of  new services.  Asdescribed in a post on Facebook and Twitter as Inf rastructure f or Dissemination of  Research Papers(and More) publishers such as Spring are providing mechanisms f or researchers to share peer-reviewedpapers using Facebook and Twitter, so perhaps Facebook could have a role to play as a sharing tool whichis embedded within institutional tools.Alternatively might Facebook have a role to play in more signif icant development work.  The init ial popularityof  the Guardian’s Facebook app suggested that Facebook could have a role to play in sharing one’sreading activit ies across one’s networks, although more recent evidence, as described in a post on“Facebook Social Readers Are All Collapsing” suggests that Facebook apps which provide ‘f rictionlesssharing’ are declining in popularity. A more recent post TechCrunch post which described how Decline OfReader Apps Likely Due To News Feed Changes, Shows Facebook Controls The Traf f ic Faucet provided amore thoughtf ul analysis of  the reasons f or the decline in usage, but also highlighted the dependencieswhich organisations will have in reliance on commercial companies whose business decisions may adverselyaf f ect organisations which rely on their services.Figure 2: Facebook ‘Likes’ for Russell Group universities (see google document for full list of institution names)The question “What’s next f or Facebook use in UK Universit ies?” will be an interesting one.  And with overhalf  a million ‘likes’ will Oxf ord University be thinking about benef its which can be gained f rom such a largenetwork?  Alternatively will institutions such as Newcastle University with small Facebook networks shrugtheir metaphorical shoulders at such suggestions and argue that Facebook has no value to their teachingand learning and research activit ies? Or might the popularity of  Facebook at Oxf ord and CambridgeUniversit ies, which, as can be seen f rom the histogram, has a signif icant af f ect on the overall totals f orRussell Group universit ies, simply ref lect the brand awareness f or these two institutions?What are your thoughts?  And what evidence will you need to gather if  you f eel that alternatives toFacebook will have a signif icant role to play? This post was originally published on Brian Kelly’s blog, UK Web Focus. He has asked readers to considerparticipating in a survey on the use of Facebook across higher education here.Note: This article gives the views of the author(s), and not the position of the Impact of Social Sciences blog,nor of the London School of EconomicsAbout the author:Brian KellyBrian Kelly works f or the JISC-f unded Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN, University of  Bath. His job tit leis UK Web Focus. In this role he has responsibility f or supporting innovative uses of  the Web and sharingbest practices. Brian’s UK Web Focus blog was launched in 1996 and has a high prof ile in sharing thoughtson Web developments. The blog is an open notebook, averaging about 4 posts per week (1,090+ posts intotal). This is complemented by Brian’s @briankelly Twitter account which provides a tool f or engagementand dissemination.. Related posts:1. How visible are UK universit ies in social media terms? A comparison of  20 Russell Group universit iessuggests that many large universit ies are just getting started2. Images of  the ‘ivory tower’ do not portray the f ull story: it is more likely that UK universit ies generatebillions of  pounds in social value each year.3. Who gives a tweet? Af ter 24 hours and 860 downloads, we think quite a f ew actually do4. By leveraging social media f or impact, academics can create broader support f or our intellectual workand prof ession.5. Universit ies are increasingly moving towards recognising digital scholarship despite conf lictingmessages that f avour tradit ional publishing in journals

What’s next, as Facebook use in UK universities continues to grow?

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