The Use of Social Networks by Universities at Institutional Level. A Comparative Study.

Abstract

The massive emergence of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) that we see today has influenced and substantially changed the ways in which we learn, teach,communicate, work and, therefore, how we live. In this context, the emergence of social networks shows a qualitative leap that significantly enhance communication and knowledge generation of the scenarios involved. In the actual debate about uses of social networks for teaching it is often overlooked that universities during the last years started themselves to be active at the institutional level in various social networks. However the movement was not followed by concise strategies. The authors make a thorough analysis of the state of the art by comparing web interfaces of five Spanish speaking universities including Spain, Mexico and Argentina with respect to social network usage. The analysis is complemented by in depth interviews with academics responsible in the area. The results are then summarized and some recommendations for future actions are formulated.