Using Facebook to build community

Facebook?  In higher ed? How - and why - should faculty and institutions use Facebook?

Facebook is just one of many techniques we can use to create a community, whether in a traditional, F2F classroom, an online classroom, or at the institutional level. [See the previous post for an explanation of community and its importance to the higher education institution and in the classroom.]

Facebook is free (I am all for free!), and most of our students already know how to use and have their own Facebook account. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, 71% of all online American adults use Facebook, including 87% of 18-29 year-olds and 73% of 30-49 year-olds.

 So, how do we as faculty and as institutions make use of this technology - and why should we?

Institutional use of Facebook

Institutional commitment. University and program-sponsored Facebook pages tend to foster community and commitment. Student registration at a university's Facebook site has been shown to influence student post-registration social networks, helping new students to make friends and keep in touch with family at home (Madge, et al, 2009). Facebook has even been used to help PhD students adjust to their doctoral program and new culture by encouraging knowledge exchange, nurturing socialization, and building community among students (Ryan, 2011). Facebook can help build school pride as well - and school pride and institutional commitment go hand-in-hand. Lenoir-Rhyne University updates Facebook during games (see left).

 College choice. Institutional use of Facebook even impacts college choice. Tucciarone (2009) found that students  doing their college selection research often look for links from university websites to university-sponsored Facebook pages, using this as a point in their decision-making. Facebook can be a great place to post virtual tours as well. Stanford's Facebook page houses Summertime at the Farm: A Walking Tour to show off its 8,000+ acre campus. Services such as Yourcampus360 will even create a virtual campus tour to be used on Facebook or on University websites.

Keeping in touch with current students and alumni.  Facebook ages can share useful information with current students (see Arizona State University o the left). Connecting with alumni for reunions and fundraising is easier using Facebook and other social media (Bennet, 2010; Halligan, 2010), allowing alumni to interact and even plan events. The College of William and Mary has an Alumni page with a variety of alumni events, shown to the right.

Department, unit, and program pages are also useful ways to engage prospective and current students.  Click here to see a very successful Trinity College of Music's Library Facebook page.

Resident Advisor and resident connections. I remember living in a dorm with an RA..... and around 50 other first-year females. Imagine if we had had Facebook then! Kacvinski and Moreno (2014) suggest RAs using Facebook to identify college students at risk for academic issues, depression or  problem drinking. This could then lead to in-person discussions to address any issues. 

 Faculty use of Facebook

I'll begin with how I use Facebook.

 I teach graduate level students in a fully online Community College Administration program, and one of the first assignments in each course is to join our program Facebook page.  Now, it's not that I don't  want to be "friends" with my students, but I feel the need to set some professional boundaries, so I have created a Facebook program page where students make their posts. They simply have to "like" the page to join, and I serve as administrator.  They cannot see my personal posts as I have set the privacy level for my account to where someone has to be on my friend list to see my posts..... so students only have access to what is posted on our program FB page.... and, of course students are free to "friend" each other...and often do.

Some courses require students to make a specified number of posts on the program page, linking to specific topic-related articles, blog posts, videos, and such, making a substantive comment that draws folks in  to to read their posts. They are also required to respond to each others' posts, sometimes sharing additional articles or videos for the other students to view in response. The post to the left shows a link one student provided to an article on Cultivating town and gown Relationships. NOTE: Student identity removed.

I also post to the program Facebook page providing links to free webinars on program-related topics and program announcements, including links to course syllabi, photos, recruitment event announcements, and infographics for upcoming courses.
 

In still other classes, posting on Facebook is an optional assignment, yet is seems to be one that students often choose. They post links to events  at their community colleges as well as promotional articles about their work.

Some classes have a blogging component, and I will - with student permission - post links to some of their posts but always after obtaining their permission first.

Other assignments may have students critiquing and discussing articles with one another, and a future assignment has them exploring the various ways THEY can use Facebook in their current community college positions.

Course Facebook pages. Joosten's Social Media for Educators suggests creating separate Facebook pages for each course to post announcements, news, and course updates. Others have experimented with using a closed Facebook group page as a Learning Management System. Although Facebook can only post links to webpages, photos, and videos, using a resource such as google docs would allow faculty to share readings, and even group documents through Facebook (Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang, & Liu, 2012).

Asynchronous discussion forums. Dyson et al. (2014) suggest posting a contemporary news story related to the week's topic urging students to read the material, comment, ask questions, and discuss prior to the week's lecture. During class time, they review the materials with the students to establish real-world relevance of the topic being introduced.  In this way students discuss the material outside of class before the in-class discussion. Using Facebook brings the content to the students rather than the students having to come to the content hosted in a learning managements system.

Facebook study groups. Students can also form their own study groups through Facebook, using this as a small group discussion, project planning, information exchange opportunity (Gray, Annabell, & Kennedy, 2010).

Professional Resources on Facebook. Many professional groups have Facebook pages just a click away from your students. Locating these for your students - or having them locate organizations, join their pages, and perhaps write a review of those pages would help students not only to begin developing professional networks, but to access a wealth of information outside of the classroom. Check out the following resources available through Facebook: American Association of Community Colleges, Reading Rockets,  National Council of Teachers of English, and the American Counseling Association.

Points to Consider

 Do I "friend"?  That is truly up to you and your comfort level. I have chosen not to friend my students until they graduate, mainly to allow us some separation in our personal lives.  Years ago I accepted a friend request from a student  after repeated attempts on the student's part to ask me to "friend" him. He missed class one night, emailing to say he was not feeling well. Later that day, a series of photos of him on his ski vacation appeared, all date stamped for that day....There are some things I just don't want  or need to know. If you are comfortable having a student as a "friend," then do it. Otherwise.....

How much should I share?  How much of your personal life do you really want to share? This is a question to consider whether you want to "friend" your students or not. When I first started using Facebook in 2008, we were told as faculty to have two separate accounts - one that was personal and one that was professional. Well, that is just too much work for me. Instead, I use my privacy settings and be sure that only my friends can see my posts...and I am still careful as to what I post because of my digital footprint. If you decide to "friend" your students, consider carefully what you post...just how much you want your students to know about you and how much you want to know about your students.

What is a digital footprint and why is it important? A digital footprint is data that users leave behind on digital services.  There are two main classifications for digital footprints: passive and active. A passive digital footprint is created when data is collected without the owner knowing, whereas active digital footprints are created when a user deliberately releases personal data for the purpose of sharing information about oneself by means of websites or social media. Click HERE to watch a  video I created for my students regarding digital footprints and job world.

What about privacy for my students? Along with your privacy concerns,  we need to be aware of our students' privacy needs. Will you set up a Public, Closed, or a Secret group Facebook page? The graphic to the right gives an overview of the three settings., but a much more detailed comparison is available through the Facebook Help Center. Your choice may depend upon the content matter. Students in a counseling program, for instance, may need the secret setting due to confidentiality requirements established by CACREP accreditation.  My program group page is fully open, and people I do not know have joined it. This way the group page can serve as a marketing tool, but it also allows students to practice thinking about how to be a higher education administrator in a digital world as they deal with issues of privacy and ethics in their own posts. A closed group might be a good in-between choice. If you post photos of students, ask their permission before tagging them in those photos as those tagged photos will then appear on their individual Facebook pages and in their feed as well as on your group page. If you want to share a link to a video, blog, or article they have written - obtain their permission first.

Tying it all together

Facebook is a free social networking tool being used by 71% of all online American adults. Higher education institutions can use Facebook to foster institutional community and classroom community. University-based Facebook pages can impact college choice along with increasing institutional commitment. Pages can provide information and serve as  support for students as well as alumni.

Faculty can use Facebook within their classroom from simple postings to serving as their course LMS. Pages can be designed for programs, individual classes, and even study groups with a variety of privacy levels available. Student interaction can be as little as "liking" a post or as much as presenting unit content.

There are some issues to be considered, including professionalism, privacy, and digital footprints. 

At this point, however, the positives outweigh the negatives, and negatives can be avoided with solid planning and preparation.  Do you see a place for Facebook at your institution? in your classroom?

References

Bennett, C. (2010). Cast a wider net for reunions. Currents, 36(7), 28-31.

Dyson, B., Vickers, K., Turtle, J., Cowan, S., &  Tassoe, A. (2014). Evaluating the use of Facebook to increase student engagement and understanding in lecture-based classes. Higher Education, 69, 303-313.

Gray, K., Annabell, L., & Kennedy, G. (2010). Medical students' use of Facebook to support learning: Insights from four case studies. Medical Teacher, 32, 971-976.

Halligan, T. (2010). The social media evaluation: Online tools drive opportunities for alumni outreach, fundraising. Community College Journal 80(4), 30-33.

Joosten, T. (2012). Social media for educators: Strategies and best practices.  San Francisco: Jossey- Bass.

Kacvinski, L., & Moreno, M.  (2014). Facebook use between college resident advisors and their residents: A mixed methods approach. College Student Journal, 48(1), 16-22.

Madge, C., Meek, J., Wellens, J, & Hooley, T. (2009). Facebook - social integration and informal learning at university: It is more for socializing and talking to friends about work than for actually doing work. Learning, Media, and Technology, 34(2), 142-155.

Ryan, S. H.,  Magro, M. J.,  & Sharp, J. K. (2011). Exploring education and cultural adaptation through social networking sites. Journal of  Information Technology Education, 10, 1-16.

Tucciarone, K . M.  (2009). Speaking the same language: Information college seekers look for on a college website. College and University, 84(4), 22-31.

Wang, Q., Woo, H. L., Quek, C. L., Yang, Y., & Liu, M. (2012). Using the Facebook group as a learning management system: An exploratory study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(3), 428-438.