Title: Blogs, wikis and social networking sites: a cross institutional survey amongst Greek students

Authors: Stavros T. Ponis; Helena Gioti

Addresses: School of Mechanical Engineering, Section of Industrial Management and Operational Research, National Technical University of Athens, Heroon Polytechniou 9A – Zografos 157 80, Athens, Greece ' School of Mechanical Engineering, Section of Industrial Management and Operational Research, National Technical University of Athens, Heroon Polytechniou 9A – Zografos 157 80, Athens, Greece

Abstract: In this paper, we attempt to explore the penetration of Web 2.0 technologies amongst Greek students, determine their level of usage and explore the students' opinions and perceptions regarding their usefulness for learning and educational purposes. In that context, we present the initial results of a survey-based cross-institutional study, conducted between September 15 and October 30, 2010, on a sample of five hundred undergraduate students from the two oldest university establishments in Greece. Our survey results reveal that social networking sites despite being by far, the most popular Web 2.0 service amongst Greek students, present the lowest perceived value in regards of the service's usefulness for educational and studying support purposes. On the other hand, blogs and wikis, which are considered educationally more useful by students, present low percentages of systematic use and content contribution and even lower percentages of ownership. Following the initial descriptive analysis of our cross institutional survey data presented in this paper, we are in the process of conducting a series of statistical tests for identifying significant correlations between variables and testing a set of prescribed research hypotheses.

Keywords: Web 2.0; social networking sites; SNS; Facebook; blogs; wikis; survey; Greek students; university; higher education; Greece; web based communities; online communities; virtual communities; learning; educational support; study support; social networks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2013.051300

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2013 Vol.9 No.1, pp.152 - 168

Published online: 30 Jan 2014 *

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