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

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.