Title: Social media adoption in higher education: a case study involving IT/IS students

Authors: Kerstin Siakas; Pekka Makkonen; Errikos Siakas; Elli Georgiadou; Harjinder Rahanu

Addresses: Department of Informatics, Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, P.O. Box 141, Thessaloniki 57400, Greece ' Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, Jyväskylä 40014, Finland ' Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, IT Centre, University Campus, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece ' Faculty of Science and Technology, Middlesex University London, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT, UK ' Faculty of Science and Technology, Middlesex University London, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT, UK

Abstract: This paper discusses the adoption and use of social media in Higher Education (HE). The aim of the research reported in this paper was to identify the main factors and problem areas in the adoption and use of social media in HE. Our study included a survey involving students of Information Technology and Information Systems in Greece and in Finland. In order to verify the findings from the survey, a follow-up survey was also undertaken. The unified technology adoption approach was identified to be a suitable underlying theory for this study. The analysis of viewpoints of students was needed in order to understand converging and diverging viewpoints. The results showed that infrastructure is the most important issue in the planning of learning/teaching activities based on social media, followed by the role of social influence. Based on the analysis, guidelines for planning social-media-based learning activities are proposed. Indications of further work complete the paper.

Keywords: case study; IS students; IT students; learning; social media; social media adoption; social media in higher education; social networking; social network sites; teaching.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSMILE.2017.086094

International Journal of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments, 2017 Vol.5 No.1, pp.62 - 78

Received: 21 Sep 2016
Accepted: 29 Dec 2016
Published online: 24 Aug 2017 *

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