Sense of Community in Online Social Networks at University Environments

Abstract

This research studies sense of community (SOC) applied to students who participate in online social networks at their universities. Sense of community has been studied for different types of communities and different purposes; in this research SOC will be applied to communication via social networks online, for social, professional and academic uses. The research question will be “What are the benefits of sense of community in social networks online?” This research will apply a model and a survey instrument to undergraduate students in the last year of university studies in Lima, Perú, to examine satisfaction, sense of community, information quality and system quality related to online social networks. The results analyze the relationship between these mentioned variables, and extend the findings to public and private universities in Peru. A previous study was done at a public university in U.S.; and opened the possibility to study more countries. The model confirmed in this research helps understand the use of online social networks, and therefore universities can use this understanding to improve the relationship between students, faculty members and administrative staff.