The aim of this study is to seek fundamental uses and gratifications of a social networking website, Facebook as a case, and the possible advantages and the challenges of utilization of Facebook for instructional activities. The research study encompassed four main steps / the analysis of uses &amp / gratifications of Facebook, the analysis of Facebook utilization possibilities for instruction, the interviewing for two preceding steps, and the realization and analysis of a course on Facebook. In the study both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered through questionnaires, interviews and open-ended questions. The qualitative data was analyzed according to qualitative data analysis techniques and quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS software. The results showed that Facebook which is perceived as a usable tool has a potential utilization for instructional activities. As quite new context, the participants seemed concerned about participating any learning activity on Facebook. Most of the participants in all steps of the study emphasized that Facebook should be a supplementary material for instructional activities. It is concluded that individual differences and alternative methods must be studied for better integration of Facebook into education.

The purpose of this study was to investigate students&rsquo / social networking sites (SNSs) involvement, students&rsquo / involvement of Facebook as course management system (CMS) in face-to-face course, students&rsquo / acceptance of Facebook, students&rsquo / motivations, students&rsquo / achievements, and their relationships. The study, used Facebook as CMS, was conducted in a private university with 42 participants in two different freshman courses. Maximum variation sampling was employed in selecting 12 students for interview. Mixed method was employed as part of an action-research approach. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were utilized to thoroughly analyze Facebook use as CMS. Quantitative data were collected through three questionnaires about Facebook acceptance, motivation to the course and involvement of Facebook and course Facebook page. The qualitative data were collected through both individual interviews and discussion posts of course Facebook page. The quantitative data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics, and correlation analyses. Coding schemes were used to both find the depth-of-discussion posts and convert qualitative data into quantitative data. The results stated that students&rsquo / SNSs involvement, students&rsquo / acceptance of Facebook, students&rsquo / motivations, students&rsquo / achievements and their relationships were different according to the taken course. Possible reasons of the differences of utilization and engagement in the course activities were clarified in the study. Results support that students and instructors could benefit from Facebook usage in learning and teaching. Most of the participants believed the value of having CMSs in all courses. Moreover, they preferred Facebook as CMS to communicate easily, to increase their active participation and interactions in their courses.

Recent trends in social networking site (SNS) use amongst teachers have led to some alarming circumstances. Practicing and pre-service teachers have been fired or otherwise punished (e.g. suspension, licensure revocation, etc.) for a variety of offenses related to their SNS use, ranging from sinister to morally ambiguous offenses, and have been encouraged or required by school administrators, professors, and others in positions of power to use SNS in particular ways. Past research on the topic of SNS in education and SNS professionalism has focused on issues of implementation (e.g. how to use SNS to support learning) or utility (e.g. how to use SNS to successfully achieve career goals). Missing from this discussion, however, is an understanding of how teachers (and those preparing to become teachers) naturally come to participate in SNS, why they participate in the ways that they do, and how this use is related to their identity. This study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by understanding pre-service teachers’ uses of SNS in terms of previous experiences, cultural expectations, social benefits, connections to identity construction and maintenance, and how these uses and beliefs regarding SNS begin to change in response to professionalization processes. Grounded theory is employed to generate an explanatory construct, which I refer to as the Acceptable Identity Fragment (AIF). The AIF is then used to understand and illustrate issues surrounding SNS use in education. Major findings suggest that 1) pre-service teachers’ identities in SNS represent a fragment of their authentic identities, 2) pre-service teachers use various SNS differently in conjunction with each SNS’s embedded values and assumptions about identity, 3) SNS use raises various problematic issues surrounding identity and how pre-service teachers are perceived and judged as individuals (e.g. digital persistence, lateral surveillance, etc.), and 4) professionalization processes alter and restrict pre-service teachers’ ability and comfort to express themselves in SNS. These findings lead to discussion, implications, and recommendations on a variety of topics including the following: institutional uses of SNS in education, relationships between fragmented and authentic identities, SNS literacy development, and cultural issues of SNS use. / text

Das Populäre und das Archiv sind zwei sich gegenseitig ausschließende Gegenstandsbereiche, wenn man ersteres mit den Kennzeichen Allgemeinverständlichkeit und Allgemeinzugänglichkeit bei gleichzeitiger affektiver Verankerung (Williams 1976) verbindet, und letzteres in erster Linie als Selektionspraxis und normative Wissensformation versteht (Foucault 1969, Derrida 1995). Mit Urs Stäheli (in Pompe, Scholz 2002) lässt sich hier ein Paradox aufzeigen: das allgemein Verständliche zu archivieren hieße, nur das, was schon überall vorhanden ist zu verdoppeln. Das Populäre der Archivordnung zu unterwerfen, hieße jedoch auf der anderen Seite, es zu ‚entpopularisieren’, den Zugang zu selegieren. In der jüngsten Vergangenheit nun werden wir mit fluktuierenden Archivstrukturen konfrontiert, die sich via Internet und Netzwerk-Konfigurationen als dynamisch veränderbares Bilderkonvolut und als selbstreflexive Medienpraxis präsentieren. Wikipedia und YouTube drängen sich heute als dominante Bildarchive auf, die als populäre Medienpraxis die archivarische Arbeit am Bild beständig weitertreiben und umbauen. Es wäre nun zu fragen, ob nicht gerade hier eine Archivpraxis bereitstünde, die das Populäre nicht in statuarischen Ordnungssystemen tot stellt, sondern Selektions- und Ordnungsprozesse als performative Praxis offen hält. Vielleicht wäre es möglich, hier das Bild eines ‚Archiv-Dunkels’ und einer offenen Oberfläche des Populären zu einem hybriden Konzept zu verschränken.

Companies and organizations are predominantly divided into several departments. The departments are generally isolated from each other since the members often work with different projects internally and are constrained from socializing with others outside their department. Therefore, as a result, lack of social engagement within the departments and organizations is induced[1]. The focus of this study is to develop a web application and implement it at a company to encourage staff to socialize more within the company. The web application, whose primary function is to register a user’s interest of lunch, is eventually expected to match a colleague who also has applied for a similar interest. The work follows a design-implement-test methodology with a quantitative interpretation of the test results. Conclusively, the results indicate that the developed web application can be interpreted as a potential tool and aid for utilization of larger companies and organizations. The results also show tendencies for the users to reutilize the application, hence possibly encouraging the social networking within the company. / Större företag och organisationer delas ofta upp i flera enheter med spetskompetens inom olika områden. Dessa enheter blir ofta isolerade från varandra, där anställda ofta arbetar med olika projekt internt och förhindras att socialisera med andra utanför sin enhet. Som resultat leder detta till social segregation inom organisationer[1]. Fokuset på studien är därmed att utveckla en webbapplikation och implementera webbapplikationen på ett företag för att uppmuntra anställda att socialisera och nätverka mer inom företaget. Webbapplikationens främsta tillämpning utgörs av att en användare anmäler sitt intresse för lunch för att sedan slumpas ihop med någon annan kollega som också har anmält intresse. Studien följer en design-implement-testmetod med en kvantitativ tolkning av resultaten. Resultaten av studien indikerar på att den framställda webbapplikationen är ett potentiellt verktyg och hjälpmedel för bruk av större företag och organisationer. Undersökningen visar även en benägenhet att användarna skulle kunna använda applikationen igen.

Over the last decade, community college researchers and practitioners increasingly have focused on student engagement as a cornerstone of a successful student success agenda. This study investigated community college student engagement using an ex post facto quantitative methodology. This study reports the results of the five special-focus survey items from 2009 CCSSE national administration and data collected from institutional Facebook pages. This study measured student engagement levels based on five constructs from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (Active and Collaborative Learning, Student-Faculty Interaction, Academic Challenge, Student Effort, and Support for Learners), including more than 170,000 survey respondents. Differences in engagement levels were explored in terms of student characteristics including gender, race/ethnicity, developmental status, weekly preparation, commute time, age (traditional/nontraditional), and enrollment status (full-time/part-time). The results of this study revealed the following: •An institutional Facebook page can provide both academic and non-academic information. An institutional Facebook page is a central location that students, parents, fans, and others can go to ask questions about the college, either general or specific. •Students are using social networking tools for academic purposes. •Students who took honors course(s) and students who commuted six hours or more per week were more likely to use social networking tools to communicate about coursework. •Students’ use of social networking tools for academic purposes is associated with an increase in student-level benchmark scores. A proportional relationship exists between use of SNT and engagement scores. In general, students who frequently used SNT for academic purposes achieved higher engagement scores. •However, a corollary is also true: Student Effort scores tend to be lower among students who use SNT for any purpose multiple times per day. / text

South Africa the development of small tourism businesses are extremely vital for job creation and a development of a new economy. The South African tourism industry has to look at more innovative ways for marketing their products and services to develop the small tourism businesses. The arrival of web 2.0 led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services and web applications such as social networking sites. Social networking sites have encouraged new ways to communicate and share information on the web. When it comes to online networking, websites are commonly used. These websites are known as social networking sites and function as online communities on the internet. Social networking sites are currently one of the applications of Web 4.0 developments. This means creation by the majority and web participation a necessity. The importance of customer engagement enablement is recognised. Operating systems are in cloud-computing. The communication medium became social media systems and people sell everything via desktop, mobile, tablets and iTV. This study focuses on the Eastern Free State tourism destination and its development through social networks. The main aim of the study is to critically analyse the application and effective utilisation of social network site technologies within the Eastern Free State tourism industry and to explore this objective of social network applications used within the small businesses in Eastern Free State tourism industry. The empirical study was conducted by means of a field study using a structured questionnaire and interviews with key stakeholders. Data from 60 small tourism businesses were collected and a total of 55 businesses restricted to Eastern Free State Drakensberg were analysed in the process of collecting the peer-aided questionnaires. The biggest problems in the use of digital media are knowledge to develop a proper product that has measured marketing outcomes for the small business. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

South Africa the development of small tourism businesses are extremely vital for job creation and a development of a new economy. The South African tourism industry has to look at more innovative ways for marketing their products and services to develop the small tourism businesses. The arrival of web 2.0 led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services and web applications such as social networking sites. Social networking sites have encouraged new ways to communicate and share information on the web. When it comes to online networking, websites are commonly used. These websites are known as social networking sites and function as online communities on the internet. Social networking sites are currently one of the applications of Web 4.0 developments. This means creation by the majority and web participation a necessity. The importance of customer engagement enablement is recognised. Operating systems are in cloud-computing. The communication medium became social media systems and people sell everything via desktop, mobile, tablets and iTV. This study focuses on the Eastern Free State tourism destination and its development through social networks. The main aim of the study is to critically analyse the application and effective utilisation of social network site technologies within the Eastern Free State tourism industry and to explore this objective of social network applications used within the small businesses in Eastern Free State tourism industry. The empirical study was conducted by means of a field study using a structured questionnaire and interviews with key stakeholders. Data from 60 small tourism businesses were collected and a total of 55 businesses restricted to Eastern Free State Drakensberg were analysed in the process of collecting the peer-aided questionnaires. The biggest problems in the use of digital media are knowledge to develop a proper product that has measured marketing outcomes for the small business. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Die Dissertation untersucht, welche individuellen Einflussfaktoren Wissenschaftler zur Wissensteilung mittels Social Software motivieren. Dazu werden universitäre Wissenschaftler, ihre Stakeholder und typische Karrierewege sowie die Bereiche Open Science und Open Educational Resources beleuchtet. Im Anschluss wird die Anwendbarkeit existierender Theorien der Technologieakzeptanz und der Wissensteilung (insbesondere in virtuellen Communities) auf die Wissensteilung von Wissenschaftlern mittels Social Software untersucht. Darauf aufbauend werden potentielle Einflussfaktoren identifiziert und ein spezifisches Erklärungsmodell abgeleitet. Dieses wird mittels Online-Umfragen empirisch überprüft und verfeinert.

Submitted by Maria Medeiros (maria.dilva1@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-08-03T13:15:05Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ISABELLE COSTA PEREIRA - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCS) 2013.pdf: 1248866 bytes, checksum: 1bdb7e92aa09b0c59a6a0f2387119ce1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-03T13:15:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ISABELLE COSTA PEREIRA - DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCS) 2013.pdf: 1248866 bytes, checksum: 1bdb7e92aa09b0c59a6a0f2387119ce1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo entender como se caracteriza a relação de líderes comunitários com políticos em bairros periféricos da cidade de Campina Grande-PB. Trata-se de lançar um olhar particular sobre líderes representantes de entidades associativas que vivenciam o apoio a grupos políticos ora tornando personagens principais de atividades de Campanha Eleitoral dentro do bairro, ora demonstrando seu apoio no cotidiano de suas entidades representativas. Intentamos, assim, compreender de que forma é construída e possibilitada essa rede de acessos e se essa relação provoca reconfigurações em modos de se fazer política na atualidade. A pesquisa de campo foi realizada nos bairros Ferraz e Belo Monte, na Cidade de Campina Grande-PB, utilizando-se de metodologias qualitativas, como a etnografia através de entrevistas e pesquisa participante, entendendo que só através dos métodos etnográficos seriamos capazes de interpretar os "bastidores da política". / This research aims to understand how the relationship between community leaders in the suburbs of Campina Grande - PB and politicians is characterized. We intend to have a glance over representative leaders of associative organizations who experience both supporting political groups becoming the main characters of Election Campaign activities within the neighborhood and demonstrating their support in their everyday representative organizations. We intent, thus to understand how the access network is built and enabled as well as if this relationship causes reconfigurations in ways of politics nowadays. The research was carried out in the neighborhoods of Ferraz and Belo Monte, Campina Grande - PB, by using qualitative methodologies, such as ethnography through interviews and participant research, we could conclude that only through these methods we would be able to interpret the "politics backstage”.