ISTUS Report

Institutional Strategies for the Uptake of Social Media in Adult Education

Project Information and Imprint Institutional Strategies for the Uptake of Social Media in Adult Education (ISTUS) The ISTUS Project is a Grundtvig Learning Partnership for the Euro- pean Lifelong Learning Programme that focuses on Institutional Strategies Targeting the Uptake of Social Media in Adult Education. Duration: Autumn 2011 – Autumn 2013 Project Blog: http://istusproject.blogspot.de/ Project Partners WHL Wissenschaftliche Hochschule Lahr, Germany International Correspondence Schools Limited, UK Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania Comune di Sant’Angelo in Vado, Italy NTI University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland Project Coordinator WHL Wissenschaftliche Hochschule Lahr Prof. Dr Michael Klebl Hohbergweg 15–17; 77933 Lahr; Germany [email protected] Published 2013 by the ISTUS Project at MRU ebooks, Vilnius (Lithuania) ISBN 978-9955-19-583-2 | http://ebooks.mruni.eu Licence

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ Disclaimer This publication was produced by the ISTUS Project with the financial support of the European Commission. The content of this report is the sole responsibility of ISTUS and its project partners. Furthermore, the information contained in the report, including any expression of opinion and any projection or forecast, does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission and in no way anticipates any future policy plans in the areas addressed in this report. The information supplied herein is without any obligation and should be used with the understanding that any person or legal body who acts upon it or oth- erwise changes its position in reliance thereon does so entirely at their own risk.

Contents

1 | Introduction...... 1 1.1 Project Objectives...... 1 1.2 The Partner Institutions of the ISTUS Consortium ...... 2 WHL Wissenschaftliche Hochschule Lahr, Germany 2 International Correspondence Schools Limited, UK 3 Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania 4 Comune di Sant’Angelo in Vado, Italy 4 NTI University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands 5 Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland 5 Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland 6

2 | Social Media in Education...... 7

3 | Methodology...... 10 3.1 Literature Research ...... 10 3.2 Interviews...... 11 3.3 Qualitative Analysis...... 14 3.4 Criteria ...... 15

4 | Stages of Adoption...... 17 4.1 Maturity Models in General...... 17 4.2 The ISTUS Adoption Model ...... 21 4.3 Adoption of Social Media ...... 24

5 | Contradictions...... 26

6 | Strategic Decisions ...... 31 6.1 Stories...... 31 University of Urbino – LaRiCA Research Center 32 HZ University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands 33 Edinburgh Napier University 34 Mykolas Romeris University 35

III WordPress in TAMK 37 A SUPSI Experience: Ondigita 38 AKAD network of higher education institutions 39 6.2 Decision Points and Reasons ...... 42 The Administrators’ Point of View 42 The Teachers’ Point of View 44 The Students’ Point of View 48

7 | Conclusions ...... 52 7.1 Vision ...... 52 7.2 Business Benefits...... 53 7.3 Contradictions...... 53 7.4 Decision Points and Reasons ...... 54 7.5 Basic Changes Needed ...... 55 7.6 The ISTUS Adoption Model...... 55

8 | References ...... 56

9 | Acknowledgements...... 58

Photo Front Cover James Cridland {Creative Commons-BY-2.0} http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/613445810/

1 | Introduction

The ISTUS Project is a Grundtvig Learning Partnership for the Euro- pean Lifelong Learning Programme that focuses on institutional strategies targeting the uptake of social networking in adult education. The project lasted from Autumn 2011 to Autumn 2013. The learning partnership focused on social networks, such as Facebook™, LinkedIn™, or similar approaches within the adult education institutions. Educational institutions have to decide how to embrace these services: since educational institutions should provide a protected area of relationships and trust, they may further develop their virtual learning environments and thus build their own social networks. Other educational institutions opt for the integration approach in order to make use of public and commercial services; and thus transfer their activities of social learning and communities of practice there. The general objective of ISTUS was to elucidate experiences, conditions, criteria, and arguments for this choice of strategy. ISTUS aimed to foster awareness and capabilities related to the impact of these new technologies and applications – both on an individual level of educational staff and on an institutional level in adult education. ISTUS seeks to define scenarios of a successful and efficient uptake of technologies and applications like social networks, social software, web portals, and cloud computing by institutions in adult education.

1.1 Project Objectives

In the field of adult education and with respect to usage, impact, and benefit of social networks like Facebook™ and LinkedIn™ as well as social software for lifelong learning, including non- or less institutional- ised forms of technology use (like e-portfolios and cloud computing), ISTUS wants to: raise awareness and experience of trainers, leaders, and coordina- tors related to these technologies and their educational use;

1 1 | Introduction

learn about resources and the relevant context factors for the uptake of these technologies by the partnering institutions, as well as about current and future developments in this field; develop strategies for institutions, agents, and learners for the thoughtful adoption of these technology in the field of lifelong learning. In this report you will find the results of interviews with students, teaching staff, and management of higher education institutions in Germany, Scotland, Lithuania, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands with regard to the adoption of social media in their institution. Based on these results ISTUS presents the ISTUS Adoption Model outlining the different stages in the adoption of social media in higher education. The model describes what eases and what blocks the transition from one stage to the next. The report will also present different stories of success in adopting social media in higher education by describing different cases from universities all over Europe.

1.2 The Partner Institutions of the ISTUS Consortium

There are seven partner institutions involved in the ISTUS Project:

WHL Wissenschaftliche Hochschule Lahr, Germany

The WHL is part of the private AKAD network of higher education institutions which provides extra-occupational courses on a blended learning basis (online learning, course books, and block seminars). The WHL offers Master degrees in business-related fields, including business education, for about 600 students, who come from different German-speaking countries. The WHL consists of seven departments, among these is the Department of Vocational and Economic Educa- tion. Around 40 persons (full time and part time) teach at the WHL in six different Master courses. The course in business education prepares students for secondary and vocational schools, adult education, and corporate training as well as human resource development. The students on this course, who already have a degree in business and are working in this field, provide

2 1 | Introduction high input of practical experience, which feeds into the learning/teaching process. The Department of Vocational and Economic Education has a strong research focus in the fields of adult and business education, work- related learning, basic education, business ethics, competence meas- urement and technology-enhanced learning.

International Correspondence Schools Limited, UK

International Correspondence Schools (ICS) is committed to lifelong learning and improving economic, social, and cultural skills for its learners – both individuals and corporate. With over 120 years of experience, ICS has amassed a wealth of knowledge and expertise within the education sector. As a flexible learning provider, it has evolved its core business model, providing distance learning courses to the consumer market, with the provision of specialist education services for further education, higher education, and public and private sector organisations throughout the UK. The flexible model of ICS is based on delivering learning at a time, place, and pace to suit the customers and with a focus on quality – supported by the relationships with over 20 awarding bodies. Since its inception in 1890 it has supported over 13 million learners and 10,000 businesses to achieve their learning objectives. ICS’s courses and services, being in a distance learning format, provide the flexibility to learn around an individual’s lifestyle, and offer an excellent framework for people with specific needs. People who may have missed out on education in the usual time frames for learning find distance learning a convenient option. With the availability of subject experts for consultation, technology-enabled support for their learning and social needs they find distance learning a good option, and another chance to re-skill themselves to achieve future goals. For people who may have financial constraints, distance learning also provides a cost-effective way without the additional overheads of time and travel to achieve their future goals. The learning and social environment at a learning institution is re-created online. This gives them access to the same learning as they would have in a physical learning environment. Distance learning also enables learners to develop lifelong skills, including those to be effective digital natives in this increasingly digital and fast-changing world.

3 1 | Introduction

Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania

Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) is a modern and dynamic European university with a creative and efficient research and academic community. The university consists of five faculties and 11 institutes which have been successfully developing and contributing to research and study activities, and have raised MRU to be the leading university in Lithuania. Currently, MRU enrols approximately 20,000 students, em- ploys over 800 researchers with a total staff of over 1,000. About 200 doctoral students study in the fields of law, management and administration, psychology, philology, economics, education. The university offers more than 70 different study programmes – over 80% of them carrying international accreditation. Studies and research are carried out in interdisciplinary as well as the following disciplinary fields: law, public administration, economics, finance management, psychology, social work, social policy, sociology, educology, and so on. MRU has full membership of the following international higher education organisations: International Association of Universities (IAU), European University Association (EUA), European Association for International Education (EAIE). MRU cooperates closely with over 200 international institutions including universities, public and private institutions. MRU promotes international activities and is proud of its participation in research at European and international levels. The university actively cooperates with international organisations, encourages students’ and lecturers’ mobility, takes part in international research projects, as well as implementing and creating joint study programmes, enabling students to acquire double or triple degrees. University students, lecturers, and research staff have become part of a uniform international studies and research system, where all partners strive to deliver success.

Comune di Sant’Angelo in Vado, Italy

The municipality of Sant’Angelo in Vado offers training for adults at local level within the provincial territory of Pesaro and Urbino and its training department is certified in the Marche Region. The Municipality offers training to internal employees on communication aspects and teamwork and has experience in vocational training and continuous education for adults, with emphasis on socially and economically dis- advantaged groups (i.e. immigrants, unemployed people), in enhancing language and IT skills to enable better opportunities for employment. The Municipality has participated in previous Leonardo and Grundtvig partnership projects on intercultural dialogue, vocational education, training techniques, and lifelong learning. The Municipality

4 1 | Introduction cooperates with all local stakeholders, schools, and higher education institutions in the territory.

NTI University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands

NTI is one of the most important distance learning educational institutes in the Netherlands. With almost 70 years’ experience, NTI currently offers over 800 courses from short programmes to Master degrees for part-time students who combine employment and education. NTI has, over the years, rightfully secured its position as a market leader for distance learning. With an annual intake of about 10,000 students, NTI Institute for Vocational Education (NTI MBO-College) offers over 50 secondary vocational programmes in economics, education, and social work via distance learning. NTI University of Applied Sciences, with an annual intake of 8,500 students offers 17 Bachelor programmes in economics, business administration, law, psychology, and social work, as well as a Master programme in business administration. In addition, NTI provides hundreds of short courses on languages, mathematics, administration, marketing and all sorts of basic skills for about 30,000 people a year. The educational concept is based on blended learning, comprising an ideal mix of online (distance) and classroom training. NTI organises practical training throughout the Netherlands, in Groningen, Apeldoorn, Eindhoven, Leiden, Amster- dam, Utrecht, and many more places. The focus of NTI lies on re- skilling adult people to help them fulfil their goals.

Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland

The University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) is one of the seven Universities of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. It has a university statute focused on professional training and applied research. Together with the University of Southern Switzerland (USI), to which it is closely linked, it forms the only Italian language university hub in Switzerland. SUPSI comprises five departments and three affili- ate schools, blending a wide range of competences in different do- mains, ranging from engineering to music and theatre, from innovative technologies to education, and from health care to management and social welfare. SUPSI offers more than 30 Bachelor and Master degree courses and provides a number of continuous education courses, including Master of Advanced Studies (MAS), Diploma of Advanced Studies (DAS) and Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS). It has more than 800 collabora-

5 1 | Introduction

tors and about 2,000 students in Bachelor and Master Studies and 2,000 in continuous education. Since its foundation, SUPSI has completed numerous research projects in key sectors funded by means of European and National research programmes. The great number of applied research projects allows SUPSI to contribute directly to the economic and social development of the region. Within the Department of Innovative Technology (DTI), the Labora- tory for Semantic and Multimedia Systems (LSMS lab) is active in different research areas such as e-learning, social media, and web technologies, and since 2002 has participated in the various e-learning projects of the LLP programmes.

Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland

Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) is an internationally oriented multi-disciplinary university offering education in seven educational fields. TAMK offers Bachelor and Master level studies for approximately 10,000 students. The education focuses on technology, business, tourism, as well as health and social welfare services. The present TAMK was founded in 2010 by merging TAMK University of Applied Sciences and PIRAMK University of Applied Sciences. In addition to degree studies, TAMK offers continuing education in further studies and professional specialisation studies. The remits of Universi- ties of Applied Sciences include research and development as well as offering working-life-based services. TAMK is active in various national and international projects. The School of Vocational Teacher Education (TAOKK) operates within TAMK, providing pedagogical education for teachers who wish to teach at universities of applied sciences, vocational schools, and vocational adult education centres. TAOKK also provides a programme for special needs teachers. This is a further education programme for teachers already working as vocational special needs teachers or who wish to work in this field. TAOKK also organises continuing education for teachers and trainers working within various walks of occupational life. Research and development as well as international cooperation are also on its agenda.

2 | Social Media in Education

Technologists, journalists, bloggers, and academics have all looked to define social media and have contributed vastly differing definitions from the fairly basic: “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking” (Ox- ford Dictionaries), to the more detailed: “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological formula- tions of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content” (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010) extending to the broad: “Internet applications that rely on openly shared digital content that is authored, critiqued and openly shared by a mass of users” (Selwyn 2012). Social networks and social media are terms that are often used in- terchangeably. Boyd and Ellison (2007) define social networks as “web-based services that allow individuals to: (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system; (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection; and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”. Social networks are just one small part of what constitutes social media today. As the technology involved in social media is evolving rapidly, so too is the terminology used to define it. The common denominator is that social media involves the exchange of information through online applications. Some feel that the term social media will soon become de- funct and will be encapsulated within ‘media’, showing how transient technological terminology can be. To fully understand the metamorphosis that social media, in all its forms, have undergone in the last five decades it is essential to look at some of the key early incarnations of social media sites. The first com- puterised bulletin board system (CBBS) was invented in 1978 by two computer hobbyists in order to share information and arrange meetings with friends. In 1993, a further step was taken towards the worldwide sharing of online information with the browser Mosaic (credited as making the World Wide Web available to the public) being

7 2 | Social Media in Education

developed and web pages being produced. This then led to the launch of GeoCities that same year, a service that allows users to create their own website. Geocities had gained over one million users by 1997, along with AOL Instant Messenger, and Google. In 2002 MySpace was launched, and by 2005 this was the most popular social networking site in the USA. In 2003, Facebook arrived, SecondLife, the virtual world platform, came into existence and LinkedIn, the social site for professional networking, was also launched. YouTube came into existence in 2005, and the storage, retrieval and sharing of videos online began. In 2006 Twitter was launched and this completed the initial stages of the life cycles of the most popular social media sites over the last few decades ( Social Times 2012). Blogs, a contraction of the words web log, were first used in the late 1990s, mostly as single-user accounts with updates on a subject or information about the individual running the account or small group discussion site. Blogs have been expanded for additional purposes rather than just the sharing of personal information or experiences – for example politicians using blogs to target constituents and gov- ernments setting up blogs to explain policies or answer questions online – one of the first being Israel with IsraelPolitik (http://www.israelpolitik.org/). Multi-author blogs (MABs) have now been developed to allow multiple users to ‘blog’ under one account and these can be used within education, referred to as Edublogs (http://edublogs.org/). Social media has now become an integral part of everyday life; with an estimated 2 billion of the world’s population now online (Touré 2012), devices like smartphones and tablets making access easier, Twit- ter hitting an average 400 million tweets each day (figures April 2013; Smith 2013) and 655 million daily active users on Facebook (figure March 2013; Facebook news). Alexa, the web information company, lists Facebook and YouTube as numbers 2 and 3, respectively, in their list of top visited websites. Social media is now being used for more than just social interaction and is moving into other aspects of daily life with applications such as LinkedIn targeting business and platforms such as Blackboard, an online course management system launched in 1997, designed for educators and learners. With around 65% of students using social media several times a day (The Guardian 2013), Blackboard and other virtual learning environments (VLEs), for example Moodle, have been developed and are con- tinuously enhanced to allow the incorporation of social media in education. VLEs and online classroom management systems can host lectures online, enable students to discuss various topics on forums, and interact with their peers and teachers/tutors online. Other sites such as YouTube, Teacher Tube and School Tube have the capability for teachers and students to post and share videos. Wikis, the first being WikiWikiWeb launched in 1995 (Wikipedia 2013) and the most notable,

8 2 | Social Media in Education

Wikipedia, which is ranked as the sixth most visited website (Alexa Rankings), are now being used by students and tutors to create collaborative pages of content that can be shared and edited by all users. some current examples of the use of social media within education are given below: Wikis are being set up by classes working on history projects to de- tail what they have learned about a particular historical figure or event. Edublogs are now being used within classrooms where teachers or students pretend to be a historical figure and blog under their name. Facebook is being used by teachers and schools to keep in touch with students’ parents and update them on classroom learning and school events. Twitter is being used in live classroom environments where students ‘tweet’ a question for the tutor to respond to; and the question is displayed for everyone to see. These examples only offer a small glimpse into how educators are using social media within institutions and classroom environments. So- cial media implemented within education has been viewed as promot- ing learning opportunities for students, creating student-controlled learning, collaborative learning, and increasing student motivation and engagement. As the technology and use of social media develops generally, so too will the use of social media within education.

3 | Methodology

In the following sections we give a short introduction to the research methodology that the partners used in the ISTUS project. Based on a research review, the partners conducted surveys in educational institutions in their country. These surveys comprised qualitative interviews with students, teaching staff, and administrators.

3.1 Literature Research

In European projects concerning lifelong learning, it appears to be quite common to start from rather vague ideas and fuzzy concepts. This is due to the fact that education is closely connected to national and cultural particulars. This diversity is not only a matter of differ- ences in educational systems and educational practice; more often than not, serious difficulties arise because there is no common language with which to talk about educational ideas and issues. For example, ‘social learning’ might have quite different meanings in different educational settings. In addition, the ISTUS project targeted an area of educational innovations that is rather undefined in itself. Starting from the success of social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, as well as related platforms like Wikipedia, Flickr or YouTube, it seems that everybody has a notion of what we refer to if we talk about ‘Web 2.0’, ‘social software’ or ‘social media’. Without doubt, these online services not only allow for educational use, they seemingly advance innovative educational practices. However, it is hard to define what is specifically new about these technologies, applications, and platforms. In fact, one might ask if common online platforms for learning with an emphasis on communication and collaboration between the learners (like Moodle) should be included in this category. Therefore, the ISTUS group started the project with a research review. This review considered not only the literature of prior research. Owing to vigorous activity in the area of social media in education, the

10 3 | Methodology

ISTUS group looked at reports of recent developments; and the partners presented the situation at their respective educational institution. The partners agreed to write summaries in research papers and practice reports in order to publish them through the weblog of the project. Various examples for the educational use of social media have been identified through these sources, and some survey articles offered relevant categories and terms for the description of their different uses in education. The authors of these summaries agreed to share a key finding from each source, for example: “Preparing for a technology deployment means looking beyond the cognitive selling points of a technology” (Straub 2009: 664). Some of the partnering institutions integrated students in this part of the project. Where knowledge and skills about education or social media is part of the teaching, students were asked to conduct some literature research on topics related to the ISTUS project and to write some reviews. The literature provided common ground for further investigations. First, the encounter with research and development outside the ISTUS project broadened the partners’ horizon. Second, the fuzzy usage of categories and terms regarding various educational settings with social media converged. Third, the focus within the group shifted from forms of usage towards questions of implementation, acceptance, staff development, and institutional advancements. However, during the course of the project, the systematic form of literature review was replaced by a more agile approach. Blog entries on resources became shorter, and a Twitter account was used by the project group to post short references to relevant findings.

3.2 Interviews

Before the start of the project, the partners agreed to conduct field research in their country in order to elucidate different forms of the educational use of social media as well as institutional strategies prompted by the rise of social software and social networks. This survey was based on assumptions about the adoption of technology in education and on experiences with educational reform based on new technologies. At the beginning of the project, the partners agreed on certain rationales for the survey. They then developed and tested questionnaires for interviews. With these questionnaires, the partners conducted interviews in their country. The data produced during the interviews were merged and evaluated.

11 3 | Methodology

Based on the competences and capacities of the ISTUS partners, and starting from the overall objectives of the project, the survey was intended to be qualitative, multi-perspective, problem-centred and, last but not least, feasible.

Qualitative research : The ISTUS project aimed to explore the uptake and use of social media in education as an emerging field, starting with only a limited understanding of different forms of educational use. In order to value difference and diversity, there was no option to start from predefined categories that are required by quantita- tive research. A qualitative approach was adopted, and interviews conducted using open questions. Moreover, the question of institutional strategies itself required a qualitative approach, since development, shaping, and success of strategies depend on various con- textual factors. In order to comprehend the complexity within institutional developments, the ISTUS group was interested not in measuring, but in understanding educational change, in the form of case studies. Therefore, the partners agreed to conduct a series of interviews within a limited number of educational institutions. Multi-perspectivity : Obviously, educational institutions are shaped by educators, that is, teaching staff and management. However, from a managerial point of view, the influence of learners with regard to the ethos of a school or university is often underestimated. Regard- ing the informal character of social media, more often than not, students start activities on social networks that are related to their educational environment, long before particular technologies and applications are introduced into the formal educational setting. Hence, despite the fact that the ISTUS project was targeting institutional strategies from the managerial point of view, there was no doubt that the students should be included in the interview series. Since the concerns and capabilities of teachers were at stake as well, teaching staff was considered a third target group for the interviews. Problem-centred interview : The uptake and use of social media in adult education result in significant, and possibly unexpected, changes for educational institutions. Since this was the premise of the ISTUS project, the interviews addressed trends, developments, and mutual influences between technology and education. From the point of view of the interviewees, these topics appear as issues and concerns, or opportunities and prospects. Therefore, the project group decided to adapt the problem-centred approach as a model for the interviews with students, teaching staff, and management. A problem-centred interview might have a conversational entry, as well as some closed questions to capture some structured data (e.g. about the demographic background of the interviewee). The main characteristic of problem-centred interviews is the prompting by questions and statements, and the chance to ask ad hoc questions

12 3 | Methodology

(Witzel and Reiter 2012). Hence, the project group developed an interview guide with a number of questions. These questions targeted issues such as the use of social media in class and for leisure, as well as more specific topics such as the competencies of teaching staff and certain decisions that educational institutions face. Feasibility : Above all, the survey was intended to be achievable with limited resources in an international project. The project partners were to accomplish the interviews in their work time, with no extra funding. The project partners had to find the interview partners. For the first interview series, they usually questioned persons from their own institution, but for a second interview set they had to obtain permission to conduct interviews at another institution. Therefore, the length of the interviews was limited. In addition, the interviews were carried out in the national languages of the partnering institutions. There was no audio recording or transcript. The interviewers took notes during and after the interviews, and these notes were transcribed into English and collected by means of an online ques- tionnaire. Once again, the analysis and interpretation of the interviews had to be accomplished with limited resources. Standards for qualitative research have been considered, of course. However, there was not enough time to conduct an exhaustive analysis. This may be done by the partners after the end of the project as part of further research activities. The project team managed to conduct 11 interview series, collecting data about 11 educational institutions from seven European countries. The interviews took place in spring and early summer of 2012. For those institutions that teach on campus, the interviews were conducted face to face. For the distance learning institutions, most interviews were conducted by telephone. The project group agreed to have a minimum number of persons from each of the three target groups: five students, five teachers, two administrators. However, these numbers could not be obtained at every participating institution. At the end, the project group collected data about 15 institutions, namely nine universities (higher education), four VET schools or col- leges (further education), one university of third age and one other, unspecified, institution of adult education. Fourteen interview tran- scripts from administrators, 24 from teachers, and 32 from students form the basis for analysis and interpretation.

13 3 | Methodology

3.3 Qualitative Analysis

The analysis of the data collected through the interviews comprised two steps. First, all partners worked their way through the interviews intuitively. Then they analysed and interpreted the data by means of qualitative content analysis. In the first, intuitive approach to the body of text produced from the interviews at the participating institutions, the partners in the project read through the answers individually, marked relevant statements, and suggested ideas, questions, and suppositions. With these notions in mind, the interview statements were re-read (probably more than once), in order to revise or sharpen the assumptions, or to find further evidence for a statement. This approach models a hermeneutic interpretation of the results of the interviews. It was supplemented by group discussions during the project meetings. For a second analysis of the data from the interviews, an approach according to the model of qualitative content analysis was chosen (Mayring 2004). Based on principles and procedures of content analysis, the examination of the body of text is guided by criteria (e.g. “critical incidents”; see below). Whenever a statement is related to a criterion, it is marked and connected to a key word which represents a category (e.g. “lack of skills”). The connection from a key word to a statement from an interviewee is made in such a way that all statements related to a category can be reviewed in their original context. Statements for key words can be counted and weighed. However, it is more important to understand, and thus evaluate, the context and meaning of a concept that is addressed by the interviewees, whether this occurs once or more often. Owing to restrictions in work time, this content analysis might not be considered adequate to scientific standards. Nevertheless, it produced useful results, which have been discussed in the project group, in order to validate them, and form the foundation for this report.

14 3 | Methodology

3.4 Criteria

The ISTUS project involved partners from seven European countries in the search for institutional strategies concerning social media and education. From a managerial point of view, ‘strategies’ lie at the heart of any institutional concern. However, they are manifold and hard to describe. The project group started from the premise that there is no fixed definition as to what qualifies as an institutional strategy and what does not. Thus, the field research in the ISTUS project started with a rather vague understanding about what to look for. Strategies may be described through principles that lead everyday activities as well as important decisions. Strategies may also be described by goals (i.e. a vision, a mission, or values), in connection with ways and means to achieve these goals – that is, actions, milestones, process patterns, or development paths. If someone wants to compare various organisational strategies from different companies or institutions, a roadmap for organisational development could be helpful, illustrating different paths and crossroads. If an institution wants to devise their own specific strategy, exemplary case studies might provide a valuable source of knowledge and experience. For the content analysis of the data produced from the interviews, the project group conceived three major criteria: stages, incidents, and decisions. Therefore, strategies in the development of educational institutions (in connection with the rise of social media) may be described by stages of development, by critical incidents, or by important decisions. These criteria also served as the structure and tasks in the writing of this report.

Stages of adoption : In order to make comparisons, it should be re- membered that levels of advancement will vary across the different institutions, and they are likely to capture the huge variety of situations and conditions in the way they use social media in education. Two institutions may have made totally different decisions leading to different results; however, from an objective view, these two might still be comparable in certain aspects. On the other hand, if one institution wants to learn from another, which is quite common with social media, a critical stance can show that the advanced position is not within reach for the first institution. Some capabilities of an advanced level build on activities at an intermediary level, so that absolute beginners are advised not to take the second step before concluding the first.

15 3 | Methodology

Critical incidents : In general, development is driven by specific needs. These needs become apparent as ‘problems’ or ‘issues’, which demand a reaction by the institution. However, more often than not, these particular needs are seen not as a challenge, but as an opportunity or a goal. Thus, they give way to action rather than reaction. In order to describe institutional strategies, the disclosure of critical incidents within educational institutions helps to identify problems, issues, desires, or intentions. More specifically, the explo- ration of critical incidents mentioned in the interviews was guided by the notion of contradictions. Contradictions in the description of situations, conditions, and development suggest a misfit between needs and supplies, or between particular needs of groups. Decisions : A strategy is usually seen as a way to deal with challenges, in order to develop an organisation that meets external and internal requirements. Challenges and requirements demand action. How- ever, every action and attitude (including ignorance) follows a decision to do this (and not that). In order to create strategies, it is useful to identify decision points, where an institution opts for a development path. These strategic decisions are a valuable category for the examination of stories of both success and failure. Of course, success and failure rarely boil down to just one cause. However, the description of reasons for and impact of important decisions serve as a valuable resource for learning from case studies. In the following sections, the ISTUS group presents their results from the field research in terms of: stages of adoption (section 4), contradictions (section 5), and decisions (section 6).

4 | Stages of Adoption

If one wants to compare different organisations in terms of development, strategy, and attainments, various approaches are available. For example, one can describe different indicators for development with the intention of assessing them. Another way could be to devise a model of internal and external factors that influence specific outcomes. Within their investigation, the ISTUS group decided to use stages of adoption as an approach towards the description of institutional strategies concerning social media in education. In the following subsections, we first give a short overview of the use of maturity models in relation to educational innovations in general. We then present the ISTUS Adoption Model that was developed, based on results from the interview series. Finally, we offer an outlook on unique characteristics for the adoption of social media by educational institutions.

4.1 Maturity Models in General

Stages, levels, or phases are a common way to capture the complexity of individual, institutional, economic, or even historical development. The specification of levels allows for the connection of various attributes of a single entity, as well as many entities of one kind that may be compared by levels of development. For innovation processes in organisations (i.e. institutions or companies), maturity models are commonly used. They serve as both a diagnostic and a managerial tool. The assignment of an entity (e.g. an organisation or divisions within an organisation) to a stage in a maturity model is decided based on different indicators. It is a form of assessment. Through this assessment of its capabilities, a company can compare itself to its competi- tors. On large scale, governmental bodies may evaluate a number of

17 4 | Stages of Adoption

educational institutions, in their search for a measure of success or decisions about funding. The assessment of advancements and capabilities in an organisation by means of a maturity model facilitates proficient interventions. On the one hand, particular activities are considered appropriate for certain levels of advancement. On the other hand, facilitators might ask what activities might enable an institution to progress from one level to another. Generally speaking, we are advised to not to take the second step before the first. In fact, maturity models for the assessment of organisations operate in a similar way to the assessment of individuals in their learning and development (e.g. at school or in academia). Concerning the uptake of information and communication technology by educational institutions, several maturity models or comparable approaches are known. For the ISTUS project, the project group focused on two key approaches: first, the Concerns-Based Adaption Model (CBAM), and second, the e-learning Maturity Model (eMM). The Concerns-Based Adaption Model was originally devised by Hall and Hord (1987) to capture adaption processes in any field of educational innovation. For some years now it has been used to assess and advance the integration of technology in education (Chamblee & Slough 2004). The Concern-Based Adaption Model investigates innovation processes from the perspective of the teaching staff. During the process of assessment and consulting in an educational institution, the use of an educational innovation by teachers is evaluated and discussed. The evaluation of stages of concern , levels of use and information configurations is carried out by interviewing the teachers, partly via standardised questionnaires. However, this evaluation is not intended to measure performance; it serves instead as a basis for reflec- tion. Both innovation and adaption are considered to be a process, and therefore, each stage of concern and each level of use is valued in its own right. Both the stages of concern and the levels of use were used for the interpretation of the data from the interviews (see table 01). However, the focus of the modelling done the ISTUS projects was on institutional matters rather than on individual teaching staff. The notion of information configurations was not yet used for the interpretation of the interviews.

18 4 | Stages of Adoption

Table 01 Stages of Concern and Level of Use in the CBAM (Hall & Hord 1987; 31, 55)

Stages of concern Expressions of Level of use Scope in use concern

0 Non-use little or no knowledge

0 Awareness I am not concerned 1 Orientation having acquired or about the innovation. acquiring information

1 Informational I would like to know 2 Preparation preparing for the first more about it. time of use

2 Personal How will using it affect 3 Mechanical use focused on day-to-day me? use of the innovation

3 Management I seem to be spending 4 Level 4A Routine having stabilised the all my time getting ongoing use with few, materials ready. if any, changes

4 Consequence How is my use affect- 5 Level 4B Refinement refining the use ing kids?

5 Collaboration I am concerned about 6 Integration combining efforts with relating what I am colleagues doing with what other instructors are doing.

6 Refocusing I have some ideas 7 Renewal seeking major modifi- about something that cations or alternatives would work even better.

The e-learning Maturity Model (eMM) presents a framework for the assessment of institutional capabilities related to the use of information technology for educational activities (i.e. e-learning). It was devised in order to provide a methodology for assessing the strength and weaknesses of educational institutions from a governmental perspective, and it was used and validated during an evaluation of higher education institutions in New Zealand (Marshall 2005). The eMM com- pares activities in educational institutions for the educational use of information technology with common organisational processes related to the development, the implementation, and the maintenance of software systems. Therefore, the eMM applies standardised process improvement models from software development, namely the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and SPICE (Software Process Im- provement and Capability dEtermination), to e-learning activities in educational institutions. The evaluation of an institution is conducted by rating a large number of indicators for the institution. This is done as self-assessment by administrators from the institution. All indicators describe process steps, and are rated by the reliability of this process steps (‘not’, ‘partially’, ‘largely’, ‘fully’). The ratings of single process steps aggregate to five process categories via sub-categories, just as the indicators have been developed starting from considerations

19 4 | Stages of Adoption

about relevant activities in educational institutions (i.e. learning, development, coordination, evaluation, organisation). The process categories comprise common activities of course design which are not necessarily connected to the use of informational technology (e.g. “Course documentation includes a clear statement of learning objectives”). The sub-categories are considered as capabilities (e.g. “L1. Learning objectives guide the design and implementation of courses”). The rating results in a value of maturity for each sub- category and for each process category. These ratings denote a certain maturity level from 0 (not performed) to 5 (optimising). Table 02 gives an overview of both process categories and maturity levels. Table 02 Process Category and Maturity Levels in the eMM (Marshall 2005; 60f)

Process category Brief description Maturity level Focus

Learning Processes that directly 0: Not performed Not done at all impact on pedagogical aspects of e-learning

Development Processes surrounding 1: Initial Ad-hoc processes the creation and maintenance of e-learning resources

Coordination Processes surrounding 2: Planned Clear and measurable the oversight and objectives for e- management of e- learning projects learning

Evaluation Processes surrounding 3: Defined Defined process for the evaluation and development and quality control of e- support of e-learning learning through its entire life cycle

Organisation Processes associated 4: Managed Ensuring the quality of with institutional both the e-learning planning and man- resources and student agement learning outcomes

5: Optimising Continual improvement in all aspects of the e-learning process

20 4 | Stages of Adoption

4.2 The ISTUS Adoption Model

Both the Concerns-Based Adaption Model (CBAM) and the e-learning Maturity Model (eMM) provided the foundation for the ISTUS Adop- tion Model, which examines the statements from the interviews with administrators, teachers, and students about the use of social media in their education. Both CBAM and eMM describe a hypothetical but plausible development path, with a focus on teachers’ attitudes (stages of concern), practical use (levels of use), and managerial issues (maturity levels). The development path is separated by transitions between characteristic phases: from piloting and experiment to regular use, and further on to evaluation, collaboration, and continuing improvement. The notion of process categories from the eMM introduces a variety of activities that together form an educational institution, and hence broaden the view beyond teaching and learning to the overall organisation and to management. The ISTUS Adoption Model combines these facets into major steps and minor steps in a hypothetical development path – of course, based on statements from the interviews about transitions, barriers, underachievement, attainment targets and much more. The minor steps are thought of as variants within the stages of the major steps. That is, the minor steps might follow one after the other; however, not all minor steps might apply, and some might be skipped. In addition, the major steps may overlap. In other words, a minor step from the next phases might be feasible, while the institution still remains at their current level. However, minor steps do not mix across all levels. In most cases, an institution at one level will show some characteristics from the previous level as well as some facets of minor steps from the next level. Table 03 provides an overview about the stages in the ISTUS Adaption Model.

21 4 | Stages of Adoption

Table 03 ISTUS Adoption Model: Heuristic model of major and minor steps

Major step Minor steps (variants) Findings

Ignorance Staff members actually show a very limited understanding of what social media are; some consider it a temporary phenomenon with limited relevance.

Awareness Non-education Awareness starts with acknowledging the impor- (i.e. leisure) tance of social media in everyday life, as opposed to a serious approach in education.

Para-educational More often than not, social media is first consid- (e.g. marketing) ered as relevant for marketing and public relations of the institution or for social life on and off campus, as opposed to an educational use.

Way of learning Certain tools and services are considered as useful for the teaching–learning process; often single platforms or applications (not technologies or principles) are considered as typical for social media.

(Workplace requirement) (Proficiency in the use of social media could be considered as an indispensable qualification for certain occupational areas. This minor step could be a missing link to the next; however, it was not mentioned directly in any of the interviews.)

Learning subject matter, Proficiency in the use of social media is considered learning objective, a qualification that should be fostered by educa- competencies tional efforts; sometimes as part of a specific subject (like computer science), or as a key competence across subjects.

Use Sporadic There are stories about occasional use, limited to single courses, specific programmes, or pioneers among teaching staff.

Best practice, pilot Social media in education is used in a planned manner; however, it still has an experimental character.

Everyday use Social media is widely introduced in teaching and learning, more or less as a regular tool.

Up to date Users are aware of the fast changing character of social media, and consider ways and means to revise tools and their use on a regular basis.

Experiments, There are activities that advance the impact of development social media in education by exploring new forms of use, as well as efforts to further develop tools and services themselves.

Internal use Social media are not only used for educational purposes, but serve for communication and collaboration among staff (teaching staff, non- teaching staff and administration)

22 4 | Stages of Adoption

Professionalism Orientation There is the notion that the proficient use of social media is a part of teaching competencies.

Qualification Knowledge, skills and attitudes of teaching staff is advanced by more or less structured opportunities for in-service training.

Promotion both internal The use of social media for educational purposes is and external advanced by communication; internal to both staff and students, as well as external to public and politics.

Support In addition to qualification for the staff members, there is a structured form of support, both on technical and educational matters.

Strategy Appreciation Extra activities of teaching staff based on social media is valued in an appropriate way, either monetary, or ideational, or both.

Policy Guidelines have been devised concerning the adequate and beneficial use of social media in the institution; and are known to staff and students.

Vision Social media are integrated in objectives for the development of the institution.

Sustainability, There is a clear idea of how the use of social media added value contributes to the added value of the educational institution (e.g. in terms of a business model or in terms of the institutions rationale).

These major and minor steps are considered to be a heuristic model to capture the complexity of development paths for educational institutions utilising social media. Since the ISTUS project had no intention of assessing and comparing institutions (like the eMM), and since it was not a goal to devise an integrated model for consulting and facilita- tion, the scope of this model is limited to giving an orientation. Based on these steps, it might be advised not to start with a policy or a vision if there is only sporadic use of social media in the institution. Aware- ness of the impact of social media in education might be quite diverse, depending on different professional roles within the institution. How- ever, awareness is a precondition for the appraisal of sporadic or pilot activities. Another example: as some institutions at one level may show activities from the next level, minor steps from the next level can be seen as drivers that ease the transition of the institution from one major level to the next.

23 4 | Stages of Adoption

4.3 Adoption of Social Media

In comparison with the Concern-Based Adaption Model (CBAM) and the e-learning Maturity Model (eMM), one might ask, what are the distinctive features of the ISTUS Adaption Model? Compared to the CBAM which is concerned with educational innovations in general, a great part of the analysis might apply to any improvement process in education. Considering the eMM, talking about information technology and educational reform might be sufficient, as if the uptake of social media is just rehearsing previous developments in technology- enhanced learning. So what is special about the ISTUS Adaption Model? In response to this question, the investigation considered specific attributes of social media both as a technology and as a social practice, and the analysis of the statements from the interviews principally considered transitions from one stage to another. This analysis looked for barriers and enablers, and the effect that social media might have on advancement, or stagnation. Social media has three major qualities unlike former e-learning approaches yet they bear comparison with educational innovations in general: ease of use, network effects, transboundarity.

Ease of use : In general, the applications and services of social media are easy to use. Of course, user-friendliness is a complex construct that connects at least three perspectives: qualities of the tool, requirements of the task to be accomplished with the tool, and pre- conditions related to the user of the tool. However, ease of use of social media can be described by several features. More often than not, applications and services of social media serve one single purpose, or a focused range of goals. This allows for simplicity in design, and the fit between the technology and the task provides a sense of achievement. In addition, entrance barriers are quite low. Since applications and services of the Web 2.0 are operated using the web browser with data stored somewhere on the Internet, users do not have to think about installation, licensing and file storage. They are solutions ‘out of the box’. This allows students and teachers not only to communicate quite easily, but also to collaborate by sharing notes, links, and digital content. Since education is about sharing knowledge in order to foster skills and competences, applications and services of social media meet the needs of many stu-

24 4 | Stages of Adoption

dents and can easily be applied by teaching staff. Moreover, applications and services of Web 2.0 are steadily advanced according to the needs of the users. Web technology allows for continuous updates, based on continuing analysis of users’ behaviour. Network effects : It is quite common to claim that social media are ‘viral’. Obviously, there lots of features in social software that facilitate sharing of digital content. The so-called ‘viral marketing’ em- ploys social networks for spreading messages about brands and products by having people share references to videos, blog posts, product reviews and the like. In addition to users willingly sharing their knowledge and advice, recommendations by social software are often based on statistical data about user behaviour by calculat- ing probabilities for the preferences of different user types. Of course, both kinds of recommendation features operate well in an educational environment, too. Moreover, tools and services are themselves distributed by invitation and recommendation. If a student or a staff member wants to employ a social media service in class, she or he has to invite others to collaborate. And if students or staff members want to be part of a project, they have to register with that service. If this service proves to be useful, at least some of the group members will recommend it further. Transboundarity : Unlike applications for single users (like office software), and virtual learning environments (with closed user groups for classes and programmes), applications and service of social media operate across borders. The general notion of social software is a network of people, not clearly delineated groups. Hence, the use of social media easily crosses the borders of both educational institutions and courses. Thus, the introductory processes with regard to tools and services are manifold. However, they are seldom regulated by the administration of the school or the university. For example, students use web-based social networks for communication among peers for social activities, and might start using it for coordinating activities related to their courses. It is prob- able that they will start collaboration using the services of the social network for tasks related to a course, which will eventually lead to its demand for class use. On the other hand, teaching staff are likely to encounter social media tools through private use, preparation of their teaching plans, or as part of their research activities, and thus probably recognise the educational potential of the tools.

5 | Contradictions

This section analyses the contradictions faced when adopting social media at the different institutions participating in ISTUS project across Europe. It highlights the issues faced by the three different groups of teaching/learning process participants interviewed during the course of the project. The analysis is based on the survey conducted at different European institutions, which include mostly universities, three VET schools, one university of third age and one private distance learning institution. The institutions provide study programmes ranging from undergradu- ate to PhD level, where learning takes place on site or in a mixed mode. A total of 14 interviews with administrators, 25 interviews with teachers and 32 interviews with students were conducted in the course of the survey. The first noticeable issue which could be derived from the dimension of the perceived problems in using social media is information literacy . The contradiction between the abundant use of social media for sharing information and difficulties in processing that information, reliability, and the time spent on social media led to the key issue – that of developing the necessary skills of information literacy. Lectures identify difficulties in processing information which include impedi- ments such as information overload, time used to find the required information, and sometimes the unreliability of the content. Similar difficulty is identified by students who point out that searching for the necessary information and sorting it out in the constant information flow requires time. In addition, the information found is not always reliable. Administrators also report that social media is time consuming: “more time for managing the relationships and the communication”, and needs time to master: “it takes time to take social media into use”. All three groups of survey participants – lecturers, students, and administrators – identify the problems of processing information obtained from social media. Information literacy stands out as a key skill necessary for successfully managing information on social media. According to the definition provided by American Library Association (1989), information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognise when information is needed and having the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the required information. Information

26 5 | Contradictions literacy becomes increasingly important owing to rapid technological change and the abundance of information resources. People are faced with diverse information modes and sources and have to process information according to the needs of their study, work or personal lives and use information effectively. Incorporation of information literacy across curricula in the educational institutions becomes essential and requires the effort of the faculty and administrators. Another contradiction is due to the inherent democratic nature of social media . Deleuze (1987) points out that the hierarchical democracy loses its positions in social media culture, instead democracy without any visible centre manifests itself in mosaic social media world. Lec- turers observe the lack of respect in communication via social media. Administrators are concerned about the control of learning process while students would like more student participation: “students must participate, university itself gains knowledge from that” – they feel like active participants in the process of knowledge creation. Students as active social media users are used to the mosaic world of hypertext and feel that they are able to contribute to knowledge construction at university. On the contrary, lecturers and administrators express their inclination to feel respected and control the teaching learning processes. As it is observed by Foucault (1998), educational institutions have ritualised their practice to discipline and control. However, the application of social media acts as a driving force towards democratisation of educational processes. Identity issue expressed by students reveals a contradiction about the free expression of opinions. Bauman (2011) claims that opinions, like clothes which were fashionable last season, become completely out of date next season. Being old-fashioned is a stigma in the consumer world, so students feel that they take a risk in expressing an unfashionable opinion. Personal identity becomes an object to be hid- den or not expressed, lost in the mosaic game of media, stimulated and forced in a play of identities where constant identity change, dis- missal of the old one, and seeking a new manifestation become essential. It is closely connected to security issues on social media where identity management becomes important. Some people express their concern about safe identity management, and prevention of identity theft. Privacy issue is additional concern since many social network users are not careful about what they expose on their social network space. As research participants put it: “you have to be careful on what you make public”. The change of teaching/learning processes evokes additional contradictions. Students express their expectations for changes in teaching: “teachers are often aware what social media’s world concern, actually sometimes they are even more acknowledged than us, for what e- learning concerns for instance, but they remain on traditional teaching

27 5 | Contradictions

using old tools”. According to Prensky (2001), contemporary students represent new generation who grew up with new technologies. Com- puters, email, the Internet, instant messaging, and mobile phones are an integral part of their lives. Hence, Prensky (2001) introduces the term ‘digital natives’, because the so-called digital language is ‘native’ for them. Their teachers are considered to be ‘digital immigrants’, because they mastered the digital language later in their lives and their perception and skills are not so perfect. The author identifies the educational problem with digital immigrants trying to teach digital natives whose habits of information, reception, and perception are different. So digital immigrants face the fact that they have to master social media, learn to communicate in their student language and style, and have to accept the mosaic simultaneous to their student reality. The concept of digital immigrants introduced by Prensky (2001) may seem to be too far-reaching; however, teachers cannot shut themselves off from the digital reality that brings social media into teaching/learning – they have to admit and accept that new reality. Similarly, the problem is discussed by McLuhan (2003) who admits that the era of mechanical and linear associationism philosophy prevalence has come to an end, linearity has been replaced by the electricity era with its simultaneity, and concentric nature with infinite crossing of planes where all types of media constantly interact with each other. However, changes require effort and time to master the technologies. Need for training to internalise social media into teaching/learning processes is expressed by all three groups of research participants: lecturers, students, and administrators. Even students admit that they need guidance in using social media for learning. They express a need for a “clearer framework for those who are not familiar with social media”. Hence, they notice that there are different levels of competence in mastering social media skills among students. Speaking about learning via social media stimulates a closer fusion between formal and informal learning . On the one hand, students find greater possibilities for sharing knowledge, collaboration, and working with other students without the teacher’s guidance: “sharing knowledge, sharing experience on study difficulties”. On the other hand, students express a wish to be guided and assessed by lecturers: “there should be online consultations, question sessions with the teacher”. According to Siemens’s connectivism theory (2005), informal learning becomes a significant aspect of the learning experience. Technology alters the way people process information and learning becomes the process of connecting specialised information sets, prioritising the choice of what to learn, being able to see the connections among multiple fields, ideas, and notions. In the process of handling multiple choices and connecting multiple ideas, lecturers may become facilitators, advising which information and ideas to choose, demonstrating the basic grand theories and the ideas supporting them. Lecturers may

28 5 | Contradictions help their students glide more easily through the multi-faceted ocean of information. However, students express a greater need for guidance rather than for control. Social media may become a driver in this shift towards a guiding paradigm as the culture inevitably demands a more democratic and less formalised way of teaching/learning. This is still a barrier that administrators have to overcome as they express concern about the less controlled learning process. Another issue expressed by the lecturers is the redefinition of educational institutions . The restructuring and fragmentation of the post- modern world forces the modern man or woman to take independent decisions, and construct a personal reality, reconstructing the personal, social, and working world (Glastra et al. 2004). Lecturers express the feeling that educational institutions might undergo essential changes: “the use of social media will make physical organisations redundant. A lot of the higher education institutions will disappear”, or “one possibility might be to use group video chat to replace the face-to-face meetings we still have. Students could then stay at home for classes ….” As McLuhan (2003) states, the age of technologies and electricity redefined the nature of work, freed people from repetitive mechanistic work and opened up possibilities to participate in society creatively, and created decentralised multitude of work. Although social media provides more opportunities for institutions to advertise and attract new clientele – as the administrators stress: “… gives more opportunities for advertising ourselves, to show the positive aspects of organising the study process” and “… reputation, keeping pace, student flexibility, and engagement, new markets, support overseas students, partner institution, widening access …”, at the same time social media redefines the nature of the lecturer’s work and the nature of education itself. Here administrators admit that “it takes time to take social media into use”, and “teachers need more guidance considering the use of social media”; and they are ready to provide the training and the guidance: “university is offering training sessions to staff, provides guidance for teaching staff, advice and as- sistance for students”. The process of social media internalisation is continuing and hopefully it will open up ways of expression of human creativity in the society. As Castells (2007) states:

Information age promises to free incredible potential of productiv- ity based on the power of thinking. Hopefully we could allow ourselves the luxury to seek spirituality to reconcile with nature without sacrificing the well-being of our children. The dream of the Enlightenment Age that mind and science will solve all the problems of humanity is within the reach of a hand. However, there is a deep abyss between our technological acceleration and social backwardness. Our economy, society and culture are based on in- terests, institutions and systems of representation which in essence limit collective creativity, expropriate the achievements of information technologies and direct our energy towards auto-

29 5 | Contradictions

destructive confrontation. It should not be like this. There is no permanent evil in the human nature. There is nothing which could not be changed by conscious targeted social action. If people were informed, active and would communicate all over the world, if business accepted social responsibility, if media were a messenger instead of being a notification. If we demonstrated solidarity, if we reconciled with each other, we would disengage from others in order to find our own inner world. Maybe then we would be able to live ourselves and let others live, would be able to love and to be loved.

The controversial areas could be summarised as follows: the necessity of information literacy incorporation; drive towards democratisation of educational processes; personal identity expression issues; security issues: identity and privacy management; change of teaching learning/processes towards guidance rather than control; fusion of formal, non-formal and informal learning; need for training to internalise social media; redefinition of educational institutions.

6 | Strategic Decisions

In an early stage of the ISTUS projects, the partners deliberately decided not to discuss any further what should, or should not, be considered an institutional strategy. Although the ISTUS project deals with “Institutional Strategies for the Uptake of Social Media in Adult Educa- tion”, the discussion how to define the concept of an “institutional strategy” or the term “strategy” in general appears to be rather un- productive. Instead, the partners decided to discuss decisions within educational institutions as a useful approach towards the uptake of ICT, or more specifically, social media and social software in education. Deci- sions on how to proceed in educational institutions follow external or internal requirements. The connection between these challenges, decisions in educational institutions that lead to action or reaction, and success as well as failure is quite complex. Therefore, the project partners chose to work on case studies first in order to understand the complexity of development paths within educational institutions. Some case stories are presented in the following section. Based on these stories, the partners aimed to identify decision points where an institution opts for a development path. These decision points are presented in the second section of this part of the report.

6.1 Stories

In this section, we depict case studies of educational institutions that have started using social media or social software for an educational purpose. The stories discuss the reasons for, and the impact of, important decisions mainly taken from the interview series. They serve as a valuable resource for learning about the uptake of social media in adult education.

31 6 | Strategic Decisions

University of Urbino – LaRiCA Research Center

LaRiCA (Laboratorio di Ricerca sulla Comunicazione Avanzata – Ad- vanced Communication Research Laboratory) of the University of Ur- bino ‘Carlo Bo’ – Faculty of Sociology, was created in 1995. It is a research lab active in the field of communication research and communication technology: advertising, corporate communication, media and society studies, gaming, interaction analysis. The main aim of the laboratory is to promote the collaboration between the university and companies or organisations offering tools, methodologies, trainers and qualified new media and society researchers. In 1998, LaRiCA introduced, in addition to the standard teaching methodology, an e-learning environment based on several LMSs concluding, in more recent years, in the use of Moodle. The Moodle e- learning environment was implemented in Bachelor and Master courses in order to integrate face-to-face sessions with some additional resources and communication tools. On average, 60–100 students and 4–5 teachers are involved every year in stimulating the use of new communication tools for teaching and learning processes. At the beginning, students and teachers experienced some technical problems with the platform (sign-in procedure, upload and sharing documents, assigning tasks). It was very difficult to motivate the students to use this e-learning system and the teachers to produce additional material and upload it onto Moodle. The students did not like this kind of online space, because they needed a communication tool that was always available and active. They prefer environments like Facebook, for example, or Twitter, which are more user friendly and diffused than Moodle. It is very hard to force the students to use a particular tool, and far better to adopt a tool that the students already use. In any case, it seems to be a viable option only for full online classes while it does not seem to work well for blended learning methods. In 2010, some teachers of LaRica, started to use Facebook to communicate with their students and share additional information using their personal accounts, or a dedicated Facebook group. There is no common strategy about the use of the social software at the university. Each teacher decides autonomously which tools to implement and how. The diffusion of these tools was totally spontaneous and voluntary. Among various examples Facebook can be used to coordi- nate in-class working groups, Twitter to share useful resources, or YouTube to collect and share video materials. Results : Regarding the adoption of the social media at school we must reflect carefully on pros and cons. The adoption of social software requires an extra work for the teachers. They need to be avail-

32 6 | Strategic Decisions able outside the standard teaching timetable and be capable of producing extra material. Role of teachers : Teachers must learn how to share and use these tools without being overly present in students’ lives. The social media environment is seen as a support to the educational activities. Negative effects on the implementation of these tools have not been observed and, in general, there has been an improvement in students’ involvement and communication level within the group. Furthermore, neither specific positive, nor negative effects, have been detected in the educational process. Nevertheless, social media are useful in many contexts, but they are not essentials. They work very well to create the community and to share resources and information in a quick and efficient way, but the class, in a face-to-face context, is already a community and the social software might be unnecessary.

HZ University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands

HZ University of Applied Sciences is a medium-sized university located in Vlissingen, a small town on the Zeeland coast in the southwest of the Netherlands. This relatively ‘young’ university has some 4,000 students enrolled in 26 Bachelor programmes, of which seven are taught in English. The university offers courses in the fields of education, social work, economics, logistics, water management, and tourism. Some programmes attract students from across the country and even from abroad, examples of which include special disciplines such as water management, delta management and megatronics. In total, approximately 10% of students are foreign. HZ focuses a good deal on using social media as a tool for teaching. Within the Netherlands, it is certainly considered a forerunner in this field. In 2011, the university took a principled decision to no longer ex- tensively invest in the digital learning environment, but primarily to employ the types of media that students already use. As a result, social media activities are now prevalent and run alongside, or in combina- tion with, the digital learning environment. Lecturers, management, and students all have their own Twitter accounts and also belong to shared Facebook groups. Classes have joint Facebook pages, which result in lines of communication for personal messages and study activities often being combined. Some educational programmes attract students from all over the world, but they all use Facebook. HZ therefore regards social media as contributing towards a sense of community. Lecturers are encouraged to not only communicate via social media, but also to work on digital knowledge sharing, for example, by having students construct Wiki and Word-

33 6 | Strategic Decisions

press pages. As far as possible, digital resources are made available in formats that can also be viewed on mobile devices. To stimulate the use of social media, the university has a number of ‘online ambassadors’ (certain students, lecturers, and other staff members), who can be followed via the social media dashboard on the website. Anyone who wants to know about events and happenings within the university can seek this information by accessing the dashboard (see figure 01).

Figure 01 Online ambassadeurs of the HZ

Edinburgh Napier University

There is an expectation by Students that social media will be used as part of their university experience and, equally, teaching staff want a meaningful blend of its use within education. In response to these ambitions, at Edinburgh Napier University the Vice-Principal has become a sponsor for a number of technology-enhanced learning projects that promote a best practice of social media across the university. Edinburgh Napier University is one of the largest universities in Scot- land with around 18,000 students, comprising three schools: Business School; Engineering, Computing & Creative Industries; Health, Life & Social Sciences. To support these learners, over 1,600 staff are employed. In 2012 Edinburgh Napier University launched a new Moodle site for staff and students. Prior to this, the university engaged with WebCT. The ethos of the university administration is to remain open to the use of new technologies, including social media. If staff or students re-

34 6 | Strategic Decisions quest support or access to new sites then, where possible, these are supported. Recognising that, more often, students are playing an active part in teaching, the university has two Moodle sites. One is for the course lecturers to administer; the other community is used by students for their own teaching. The university has worked to devise a strategy which will actively promote good use of technology enhanced learning throughout the institution. With an understanding that there are different values in the use of technology in education, as well as the consideration of staff ability, the 3e framework has been written. The 3e framework encompasses a message that technology can be used to Enhance, Ex- tend and Empower the learning environment. Designed to be an active document, real examples are given to support staff in the transition from using minimum technology in their teaching to offering online courses. Within this framework, social networks are promoted and leading examples of their use in education endorsed. From the University a number of the technology-enhanced learning projects have caught the attention of other universities across Scot- land and the UK. Included along with the 3e framework is the MSc in Blended and Online Education, unique in the sense that it is recognised by SEDA (Staff and Educational Development Association). The university is currently offering staff from each department a funded place on the MSc programme. This is part of the wider university strategy to fully support and train staff in their use of digital learning tools. It may be concluded that the Edinburgh Napier University strategy and corresponding projects, which promote technology in education, are of high value as peer UK institutes adopt and adapt the 3e framework as part of their own institutional strategy. As the technology and private use of social media develop, so too will the use within the learning and teaching environment. The overarching philosophy of the university is to ensure their strategy does not prohibit but rather create opportunity in new pedagogically sound teaching practices. Sup- porting and training staff will allow the overarching university ambitions to be realised.

Mykolas Romeris University

Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) is a public institution, and an international university. The university has over 20,000 students who stand out as highly motivated and enthusiastic about their chosen field of studies. Taking into account contemporary lifelong learning needs and global trends in higher education, Mykolas Romeris University has redefined itself adapting part of the curriculum to distance learning in its strategic plan for 2010. The university rapidly adapts study programmes for distance learning using open source software Moodle.

35 6 | Strategic Decisions

From the pedagogical point of view Moodle software is currently recognised as one of the most flexible. It is based on pedagogical theories of social reconstructivism and reconstructionism. When using this program it is not difficult to develop or adapt electronic study courses, and it requires only minimal administrative maintenance. The program itself is designed to encourage the active participation of de- velopers and the users' community in the process of modern teaching (and learning), as well as sharing their learning experiences. For a long time the e-learning environment Moodle has only been used by the distance learning audience at Mykolas Romeris University. Now MRU uses an updated and improved university electronic educational environment that is designed not only for the traditional and distance learning students but also for university teachers, administrators, and all the other community members. Students and listeners, as previously, find learning material in Moodle, and are also able to communicate with teachers and other listeners. Teachers have the opportunity to create a learning environment for their own subjects, place the educational material in electronic format as well as adding shots or live broadcast classes online. They can also offer advice to students in this environment. Moreover, Moodle provides a space for colleagues to share resources; it also offers the capacity for staff to access continuous professional development opportunities. A centre for e-studies is established within the university to provide technical help and training for students and teachers who may have technical problems with the system, such as uploading and sharing documents, assigning tasks. Students admit that there are pros and cons in using the platform. They like the availability of the study material, instant feedback, the opportunity to plan their study time, but some students state that for their personal use and communication they prefer more diffused social media, for example Facebook. Teach- ers admit that Moodle enables them to share study material and monitor the students much more effectively; however, they think that the preparation of study material is a time-consuming process and it requires special training. The university administrators are very interested in applying the newest and modern teaching technologies and methodologies. They admit that new technologies are helpful in advertising and building the university image. In addition, they expect it will improve the study processes. Administrators recognise the need to provide support and training for the staff but they admit that it requires time and resources. The university promotes the use of the platform by providing the necessary technical support and methodological training for teaching staff, and social media is successfully being integrated into blended teaching. Both teachers and students admit that using the platform

36 6 | Strategic Decisions makes the study process easier, although mastering it requires some time.

WordPress in TAMK

Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) offers Bachelor and Master level studies for approximately 10,000 students in seven educational fields. The courses focus on technology, business, tourism, as well as health and social welfare services. The School of Vocational Teacher Education (TAOKK) is also a part of TAMK. TAOKK provides the pedagogical qualification required of teachers in vocational institutions. TAMK operates, in addition to Tampere, in Ikaalinen, Mänttä- Vilppula and Virrat. One of the main reasons that TAMK chose WordPress (WP) as its newest platform for courses and blogs was because WP can be cus- tomised for everyone, regardless of their level of skill in coding or scripting. It offers ready-made features such as categories, commenting and picture uploads, and through plug-ins users can add features and tools with very little effort or WP expertise. For those skilled in web design, WP offers further customisation possibilities. During the academic year 2013, TAMK decided to start utilising WordPress for their upcoming projects. The task of implementing the new platform was trusted to Floworks (TAMK’s Living Lab environment) and that entailed student participation. In the spring of 2013, Floworks gathered together a team of three voluntary IT students to carry out the task of developing and introducing WP-based environments to different customers within the school. The students carry the main responsibility for the projects and are also the primary workforce behind it. The projects’ contents and the customers’ needs determine which media TAMK chooses to use for its internal projects and tasks, rather than any single person or rule. This is in order to make sure that each project gets its needs met and no tool is used without basis. This was also the case with WordPress. It was chosen for a number of practical reasons; TAMK already had a history with it and it had a leading position in the market. The decision to adopt a new tool or platform is always the sum of many small contributing factors. Currently, Word- Press is on a test run and being evaluated in practice. In the Building Services Engineering degree programme, WordPress works as a platform for organising and storing teaching materials. In addition to allowing an easy environment for teachers to work in, WP also offers basic social interaction features such as giving feedback, leaving questions, and posting example answers as comments. This

37 6 | Strategic Decisions

promotes interaction between students and teachers – something many learning facilities have long strived for. In the MielenWirtaamo project, WordPress’s blog serves to give students a place to share and comment on each others’ experiences in their mandatory practical training. It is a tool to communicate with fellow students and teachers supervising the practical training through freeform blog posts, as well as providing answers to questions and exercises. Comments and conversation in general play a big part in the project, and the students are very active in that regard. In the changing world of teaching staff and faculty training series, WordPress provides the users with a homepage and a learning environment. It is also a place to share information, both for those who are regularly using the site and those who just stumble across it and show an interest. Although commenting is much encouraged, it has yet to be utilised to the extent it has in Mielen Wirtaamo. Our current experience of WordPress is that the basic features work well and are easy to use and customise. More advanced customisation takes some time and effort to learn, but seems still doable. It is also used by other organisations (higher education as well as business), which offers us chances for cooperation. This is an ongoing project and the more people at TAMK use WP, the better they will understand its possibilities. For now, they are fairly satisfied with the results. Only time will tell whether WordPress will be taken on as a major medium amongst TAMK knowledge-based systems.

A SUPSI Experience: Ondigita

This story is about the experience of using new strategies to deliver and use learning material, proposed at the University of Applied Sci- ences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) in September 2012. SUPSI, like several other academic institutions, adopts the Moodle Learning Management System as the primary support for its educational activities for both Bachelor and Continuous Education courses. Beginning in 2012, the Semantic and Multimedia Systems lab (LSMS) of the SUPSI Innovative Technology Department started to study the new opportunities offered by mobile devices in education and to consider the use of tablets as the main support for learning resources. The adoption of mobile devices reduces the costs derived from printing educational material and sharing photocopies of students’ and teachers’ notes. The choice to use mobile devices for students, together with the need to maintain compatibility with the Moodle Learning Manage- ment System, have pushed towards the development of Ondigita, a new mobile learning platform, conceived by Riccardo Mazza, which

38 6 | Strategic Decisions enables teachers to re-use existing content and students to have a personal space in which to download, annotate, and share didactic material without the need to print. Students can subscribe to a number of courses, locally store the didactic material, annotate it using both graphic and textual annotation (sticky notes), and share annotations. An interesting feature is the possibility of maintaining synchronisation among the didactic material published by tutors and the material students have on their tablets. The basic idea is to do on the tablet what students usually do on paper, avoid printing large amounts of paper and, at the same time, to provide added value, thanks to sharing capabilities. A first prototype of the application was completed by the end of August 2012 and the first experimental use was rolled out in Septem- ber, involving about 100 students enrolled in the first year of SUPSI Bachelor courses. Students were provided with an Android tablet where the Ondigita application was installed, to download and annotate didactic material previously published by teachers. After two months of use a focus group was organised to understand students’ opinions about the system and to collect feedback for improvements. Although the prototype still presented several bugs that prevented full use of its functionalities, the preliminary evaluation has shown that students appreciate the idea of having a tool to write and share notes with peers, but they would like to have more advanced and flexible mechanisms for note taking. They wish to have free-hand annotations to make the process of note taking quicker than using the keyboards, and similar to the approach adopted on paper, and show interest for a note sharing mechanism (which was not fully implemented in the tested version). They also would like to integrate other kinds of notes (e.g. multimedia notes); a typical example might be to take pictures of the blackboard and insert them on the appropriate course page, import a previously created image, record the lecture audio, and connect it to the course material and the notes. Students consider the tablet a useful support for study as it avoids having to bring heavy paper documents, and because it allows them to use the material offline.

AKAD network of higher education institutions

The WHL is part of the AKAD network of higher education institutions, which provide courses and programmes based on distance learning. The AKAD group has a long tradition in distance education in the Ger- man-speaking countries. Therefore, the method of study relies on printed material and face-to-face seminars in study centres, forming a blended learning approach (long before this term was coined). The main characteristic of the AKAD approach to distance learning is the

39 6 | Strategic Decisions

flexible organisation of programmes and courses. There are no terms or semesters, and students generally follow an individual path, learning at their own pace. Students decide themselves when to change from self-directed self-study to scheduled seminars or examinations. Nevertheless, they have to phase in for course groups as well as for examinations for each unit in the programmes; however, teaching staff offers several events per year. Since the end of the twentieth century, the self-directed parts of study have been tutored via a virtual learning environment (VLE), called ‘Virtuelle Hochschule (VH)’. This tutoring has mainly employed web-based newsgroups, and for the most part, uses questions and answers. There have been no (or at least only few) courses that have been run via the VLE. Hence, the VLE served the demands of communication and administration (i.e. enrolment for face-to-face seminars or examinations, notification of grading). However, there was no, or limited, sense of collaboration for tuition, online seminars, or online courses. Roughly a decade after the broad implementation of the VH, the AKAD group decided to renew the VLE, in line with considerations about an enforced move towards the use of web technologies for distance education. In light of the developments in Web 2.0, the new online campus was envisioned to be personalised and social, following the idea of a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) rather than replicat- ing a course-based learning management system like Blackboard™ or Moodle. This approach is in line with the very flexible approach to teaching and learning. Two programmes at the WHL (which is the graduate business school in the AKAD group) started piloting the use of social media. For one programme, lecturers, students, and alumni moved parts of tuition, communication and collaboration to the XING™ network, which is the prominent web-based business network in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Another programme launched its own small web-based social network, using the open-source software Mahara (mainly for its social networking capabilities) on an own web server. This provided the chance for a lively comparison betweem the two options for using social media tools in an educational institution: the use of a third-party provider versus the operation of an own ‘walled garden’ system. The development of a new VLE for the whole AKAD group started with two premises. First, the ‘social’ VLE was supposed to be a tailor- made development as well as a walled garden, based on an existing enterprise portal framework (which is open source). Second, the development of the new VLE was to be user driven in order to facilitate a best fit as well as good acceptance. The new, social VLE has been called ‘AKAD Campus’. Inspired by web-based social networks and the notion of personal learning environments, everything starts online from profile pages for each user,

40 6 | Strategic Decisions teaching staff, tutors, and students alike. The profile page provides access to the study plan, hence to modules and grades. From the study plan, enrolment for scheduled seminars and examinations is within reach and, in addition, there are workspaces for seminars (i.e. course groups). Profile pages allow for direct communication. There is a text-based messaging system. Teaching staff and tutors present a link to web-conferencing on their profile page (i.e. Adobe Connect™). However, the profile page and other parts are kept as simple as possible, with next to zero possibilities for configuration. Users should provide a profile picture, and they may provide contact data and links to public profile (e.g. Twitter™, Facebook™, XING™). In fact, simplicity and ‘lean’ principles have led most of the decisions in interaction design. For example, the social network is based on the concept of ‘follower’ instead of ‘friend’. That is: there is no need for a user to confirm the connection another user offers. This way, teaching staff are not forced to think about special relationships with some students. (This issue was debated among teaching staff.) Further- more, online workspaces for groups within the new VLE are deliberately modest. Their functionalities are restricted only to those for coordination. If there is the need for cooperation and collaboration (whether this is part of the instruction or is self-organised), students use their own methods for their group work (e.g. using Skype™, Drop- box™, landline phones or, even, face-to-face meetings). An agile development approach has provided the opportunity to test early prototypes with users (both staff and learners). Further- more, a project group comprising teaching staff, tutors, and service people has been appointed to discuss and specify the requirements for the development. This surely will facilitate support and acceptance for the group-wide introduction of the new VLE. However, at the time of issuing this report, the new VLE only runs for a small number of students, since technical issues of scalability for a large number of users have set back the roll-out for all institutions and programmes of the AKAD group.

41 6 | Strategic Decisions

6.2 Decision Points and Reasons

This section summarises the reasons why ICT and, in particular, social media have been adopted or are going to be used in the future at the different institutions involved in the interviews of the ISTUS project. It also highlights the main obstacles that, until now, have prevented a widespread adoption of social media in education. This section ex- plains the point of view of the three different actors who have participated to the interviews: administrators, teachers and students.

The Administrators’ Point of View

The analysis is based on the results of 25 interviews conducted at different European institutions – most of them universities, but also including three VET schools, one university of third age and one private distance learning provider. The level of study ranges from under- graduate to PhD level: most of the institutions offer Bachelor and Master programmes. Learning takes place on site, at distance, or in mixed mode, being the last the most frequently selected option. The adoption of ICT tools for teaching and learning seems to be a common practice in the different institutions: All of them use an e-learning platform, in most cases Moodle; Almost all of the administrators use social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and others), mainly for communication purposes (with friends, students, faculty members, etc.) but also to provide feedback, comments, ideas, discussions, to share photos, to involve new students, and so on. Social networks are used for professional purposes and also for leisure and personal communications. With regard to the influence of social media on learning and working, few of the administrators think that social media do not affect learning and working at all, while most of them believe that they have an influence, and recognise a number of advantages and drawbacks. Among the advantages they mention: more opportunities to communicate and share information, increased visibility, usefulness as a services and marketing tool, independence of time and place, communication speed. In addition, they point out the following drawbacks: time required to manage contacts and communications, overheads both for students and teachers who have to learn how to use new technolo-

42 6 | Strategic Decisions gies, the possibility of misunderstandings, lack of the physical contact, the need for technical support, and ongoing maintenance. In spite of the possible drawbacks, a large majority of the administrators (67%) think that social networks should be used in the teaching/learning process. In particular, these tools are considered essential in a distance university context. They recognise that the use of social media for enhancing learning also provides a number of business benefits to the organisation, including: increased geographic and financial accessibility of studies (with advantages for students, university, and society), new markets, and keeping pace with technology. Their vision for the future is towards an increased integration of social media in education; it is a must if “we want to comply with today and tomorrows market”. Students have grown up in the environment of social media (they are digital natives) and teachers need to adapt to this new technology and adopt new tools within their teaching activity. The use of social media in education will emphasise two-way learning more clearly than in traditional learning/teaching environments, with the trend being towards more student generated content. However, many administrators see a number of limitations and challenges in a widespread adoption of social media for learning and teaching: the lack of face-to-face personal relationships, more difficult assessment and quality control, less control by the institution, the need to train teachers with social media technology, and the choice of the right social media technology. The overall culture of the organisations towards using social media in a learning environment is different according to the organisation: few institutions have a totally positive attitude towards the adoption of social media in education or have started to use it; most of the institutions recognise the advantages of this technology but are not ready to adopt it right now; in other cases there is a mixed attitude: excitement and fear at the same time. With regards to the organisation capacity to utilise social media for learning, some institutions are ready to adopt this technology; others require more resources (time and money); finally, there are some institutions that have the appropriate equipment, tools, and support, but find the resistance among “old-style” teachers who refuse to change their way of teaching. Therefore, the basic changes required in order to incorporate social media into the learning environment concerns the development of a different internal culture and the definition of a social media policy; another change has to do with the need to train and provide support to staff/teachers to use social media tools. In general, administrators display a positive attitude towards the use of social media in teaching and learning, However, they are aware that their organisations need different kinds of support (training, au-

43 6 | Strategic Decisions

thoring support, finance, time, technical) in order to adopt social media in teaching and learning. At the moment most of the organisations provide support in using social media within a learning environment that is part of the already adopted teaching strategy: the organisations generally have a specific service to provide training for this specific purpose. In summary, the analysis of the administrators’ interviews have revealed that the use of ICT tools in the teaching/learning process is now a common practice in most institutions. The most commonly adopted tools are e-learning platforms. Social media are also used mainly for communication purposes but they are not so largely integrated within the teaching/learning process. An exception is represented by distance learning institutions where the use of social media is promoted as a means to increase interaction between students and teachers. Administrators have identified a number of factors that promote/foster the use of social media in teaching and learning, and a number of factors that represent an obstacle to its adoption. The main driving factors are: providing more, and new, opportunities to communicate/share/ produce learning material; increased geographic and financial ‘accessibility’ of studies; possibility to involve a ‘bigger market’; keeping pace with technology. These factors represent the reasons why social media are already in use in numerous institutions or will be adopted in the future. Among the main obstacles to a widespread use of social media in the institutions administrations indicate the following: the need to change the internal education policy and strategies and staff mindset; the requirement for training teachers to use new technologies. In conclusion, it seems that the main problem is not technological but organisational : the technology is already available, what is required is a change in the current education policy and in the staff mindset.

The Teachers’ Point of View

This section summarises the reasons why ICT and, in particular, social media have been adopted in different institutions from the teachers’ point of view. The analysis is based on the results of 25 interviews conducted at different European educational institutions, mostly universities and VET schools. Most of the teachers are lecturers and senior lecturers. The faculties and departments where they teach cover different disciplines including computer science, mathematics, education, business,

44 6 | Strategic Decisions economics, social science, design, and psychology. The majority of teachers teach in full-time programmes but a consistent part partici- pates in part-time programmes. According to the institution typology, learning can take place on site, at distance (with a small percentage) or in mixed mode. The study programmes are mostly applied oriented. The adoption of ICT tools, internet, e-learning technology for teaching is a common practice for the teachers. Among the facilities and resources they use on a regular basis, teachers indicate the Internet, computer, multimedia, but also traditional tools such as textbooks. Almost all teachers use an e-learning platform; the most frequently used is Moodle. Concerning social networks, a large number of teachers use them, in particular Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Google+, Xing, Ado- beConnect, and so on. They use them mainly for communication purposes but also to share news, events, to get links and information, to discuss and share documents with students, to follow discussion groups, to answer questions, and send feedback. Most of the time social networks are used as a supplement to the institution Learning Management System (LMS), which still represents the main ICT tool used by the organisation for education purposes. The large majority of teachers think that social media should be used in the teaching/learning process, mainly for activities that need collaboration and communication among students. These tools are very important in a distance learning setting, where face-to-face meetings are rare. Concerning the influence of social media on learning and working , most of the teachers think that social media affect learning and working, and recognise a number of advantages and drawbacks. As pros they indicate: saving travel time, collecting useful information, sharing questions and problems with others, networking with students and colleagues all over the world, reaching most students in an easier way, increasing student responsibility, increasing interaction, collaboration, communication among students and teachers, ease and enjoyment in its use, a way of getting updated, carefully preparing answers to student questions, reduction in time-waste, having students as co- workers. They also indicate some contras : security and copyright issues, difficulties with tools, time wasted on technical difficulties, need for guidance on how to use them effectively, unreliability of user-generated content, high level of distraction, difficulty, time required to find relevant information, more time required to answer students’ questions, difficulty in structuring discussions online, time required for the forum moderator to properly monitor discussions, more fragmented work time, lack of physical contact (feeling whether a student has under- stood your answer is missing), loss of the differentiation in roles between students and teachers.

45 6 | Strategic Decisions

Teachers are concerned with the fact that their role can change and students are more active participants in the learning process. How- ever, most of them think that they should be responsible for starting activities in social networks because their main role is to manage teaching activities, monitor students, and deliver material. Few teachers think that both students and teachers can be given the responsibility for starting activities. Most of the teachers are actively involved in using social media in a learning environment; sometimes they use the tools integrated into the LMS, in other cases they use social networks or other social media tools and services such as Wiki and web conferencing tools that are outside the LMS. Again, the need for social media is more evident in distance learning settings rather than in a traditional learning one. They recognise that the use of social media provides a number of business benefits for the organisation. These basically include the possibility of selling courses to a broader audience and disseminating school activities to others, savings in travel costs, increasing the number of students, improving the visibility of the institution, potentially enhancing its reputation, increasing the institution attractiveness, facilitating the development of distance and mixed learning programmes. The teachers’ vision for the future is towards an increased use of social media in education. However, they identify a number of limitations and challenges that hinder the use of social media for learning and teaching: a need to train teachers to correctly use social media for educational purposes (need for both technical and pedagogical support); little willingness on the part of teachers to think “outside of the box”, to adopt non-traditional way of teaching and change their leading position; a need for additional economical resources; lack of face-to-face communication (as facial expressions are missing); the fact that social media is not suitable for all aspects of teaching (e.g. discussion of complicated theoretical topics which works better in a face-to-face scenario). The overall culture of the organisations towards using social media in a learning environment is generally positive; however, there is no internal institutional policy in order to use social media in a more structured way, and in some cases there are not enough resources or capacity for using social media. People are usually free to choose whether or not to use social media in their learning environment: some are aware of social media potential and are highly expert, others have poor ICT skills and are resistant to change. The use of social media is not seen as a priority for on-site universities, while it is considered essential in distance learning institutions.

46 6 | Strategic Decisions

In order to incorporate social media into the learning environment, some changes are required: First of all the institutions need a coherent plan to implement social media in the learning process to make it a positive learning experience. The institutions have to provide infrastructure and resources to train and guide teachers to increase their social media competences. The teachers also need more time to acquire the skills, organise their courses and create ad-hoc contents. The support provided by the organisation for using social media within a learning environment varies according to the institution. In most cases organisations are not very supportive: some of them do not provide support at all; few organisations provide consistent support for using social media; others offer only limited support. General technical support is available, which usually covers the use of the institution LMS, but not a specific support for social media. In order to use social media in teaching and learning, teachers need different kinds of support, including training, face-to-face workshops, technical support, infrastructure, time, resources, finance, and good practices. In summary, the analysis of the teachers’ interviews have revealed that the most frequently used ICT tools for teaching and learning are e-learning platforms; social media are employed, but their use is not considered a priority, there is usually no internal institutional policy in order to use social media in a structured way, and the use of social media often depends on the teacher’s attitude and choice. Institutions often have a positive attitude towards the use of social media but, in practice, do not create the conditions to use them effectively. Teachers have identified a number of reasons why social media should be used in teaching and learning, and a number of factors that represent an obstacle to their adoption. The main reasons for using social media are connected to the benefits they can bring and include: reaching a broader market/increasing the number of students; reducing costs; increasing visibility and, potentially, reputation; facilitating the development of distance learning programmes; providing more and new opportunities to communicate, share and produce learning materials. The main obstacles to a widespread use of social media are: the lack of an educational strategy where social media are explicitly included; the lack of appropriate knowledge and experience by teachers in using social media for learning purposes; the need for both technical and pedagogical support to correctly use social media;

47 6 | Strategic Decisions

general unwillingness among teachers to change their traditional way of teaching; the lack of resources to change the institution pedagogical strategy; the lack of time for teachers to learn how to organise their courses in a different way. In accordance with the teachers’ point of view, the conclusions are that organisations generally have a positive attitude towards the use of social media in education, but they do not provide the conditions to adopt social media. In addition, some teachers are reluctant to change their traditional method of teaching. Distance learning universities represent an exception as the adoption of social media is seen as highly profitable.

The Students’ Point of View

The following analysis is based on the results of 33 interviews conducted at different European institutions. Most of the respondents are from universities; other students are from VET schools, one university of third age and one private distance learning provider. Most of the institutions offer BA and MA programmes. Learning takes place mainly on site or in mixed mode. Only five students are studying at distance. Most of the students are employed (about 75%) and are therefore are part-time students. The majority of the respondents are between 20 and 30 or 31 and 40 of age. The adoption of ICT tools for teaching and learning seems to be a common practice at each institution: all students use an e-learning platform, in most cases Moodle; almost all the students use Facebook. Some students use Linkedin, Twitter, and other tools. The definition (or idea) of social media is mainly based on Facebook experience . Almost all students use Facebook and do not use/know of other applications or social media. They do not have a correct idea of social media because it is mainly influenced by Facebook. The majority of students defined social media as tools to keep in touch with friends and colleagues or a space for leisure and personal communication: “Online environment enabling people to interact among themselves, exchanging material, opinions and friendship”, “Social media are virtual networks that can potentially connect us with the whole world”, “Network services for communication between people”, etc. S ocial media, for students, are not considered to be efficient tools in the education process at the moment. There is a growing trend amongst many people for the use social media to create business/opportunity contacts, to network and publi- cise their professional experience and to look for jobs. In general the key element of social-media-based tools is the community. The added value in using these tools is the relationship, the

48 6 | Strategic Decisions communication, and the collaboration between the members of the network. The interview analysis showed that in a face-to-face context/class (the majority of the interviewed are studying on site or in mixed mode), the community already exists and the use of social media is not essential for the students (i.e. “no effect whatsoever, just moved my communication from e-mail and Usenet to Facebook”, “low impact, more email or phone communication”, “the use of social media has not greatly affected my learning”, “it is difficult to use because the learning groups are small and everybody has completely different working hours; it is better to exchange ideas about learning elements on the telephone than using social media; in this way problems can be communicated better”). The research revealed that the social-media-based communications take place mainly with friends and only 30% of those interviewed use social media to communicate with classmates or faculty members. The communication is only horizontal and rarely bottom-up. The students need a bottom-up communication to interact with teachers (“online consultations weekly or bi-weekly, question session with the teacher, it would be best in a group setting, so you see the questions other students have asked and the responses”, “live office hours, students chat live, ask questions and get feedback from the university, question sessions should be archived”, “concerning the use of social networks: further development, especially for distance learning inter- exchange is important, teaching staff should be engaged more; teaching staff should answer student questions more quickly, they should have less contact with single students, but the answers should be available to all students; teaching staff should give binding promise about their online availability”). Social media in education is only an option . There should be a balance between traditional methods of learning (books etc.) and the use of social media, they should not take over the whole learning process but remain as a useful addition for the students. They should be there as an option, but not the only one. Some answers to the question, “Do you think social networks should be used in teaching/ learning process?”, include: “Social networks can potentially be used for teaching/learning i.e. by creating a chatroom where pupils can interact with a tutor”, “Yes, a lot, but well walled”, “I think no, because each institution has its own platform”, “Yes, but only in so far as it can be separated from personal life”, “A problem is that work (studying) and private get too involved.” Teachers and institutions should be responsible for starting activities in social networks related to teaching and learning. The implementation and management of the social-media-based environment should be made by the institutions. The teachers should be the moti- vators of the students and the promoters of the online activities.

49 6 | Strategic Decisions

The majority of the students think that the platforms should be private and created by the institution. They prefer a private platform because of privacy issues, with a clear connection between the studies and institutions. They prefer a specific online environment for education: “Private, created by the institution: clearer connection to studies whereas Facebook can be anything”, “Private, created by the institution: students can be addressed more specifically, exchange is more intense, in public networks everyone would be able to post comments people, also people who can't add anything to the debate, so therefore the group should be restricted and it should be taken care of whom can be included.” About the future, the interviewed reported that some social-media- based tools could be better used (i.e. chatrooms with tutors to enable better understanding about specific subjects), but classroom experience should not be abandoned . They would like to have a private social network where the university qualified mentors would be available to supply all the necessary information and talk to students on the educational topics. The analysis of the students’ interviews has revealed that the use of social media tools in the teaching/learning process is not a common practice. Almost all students use an e-learning platform but social media tools are used mainly for communication with friends and leisure, and are not largely integrated in the teaching/learning process. It is to underline that the majority of interviewed are studying on-site and in mixed mode. Therefore they have the possibility to communicate face- to-face with their classmates and teachers. The students’ interviews highlighted a number of factors that promote/foster the use of social media in teaching and learning, and a number of factors that represent an obstacle to its adoption. The main driving factors are: providing more and new opportunities to communicate with teachers or institutions; sharing/producing learning material; improvement in the collaboration in group work; finding news about the institutions; making it easier to reach students where they already are. The implementation of an ICT-based tool should consider the adoption of the most popular social network within the target group. Among the main obstacles in adopting a widespread use of social media in the institutions, administrations indicate the following: privacy issues; that social networks require a lot of time; fear of social network addiction; that information is not always reliable.

50 6 | Strategic Decisions

In conclusion, it seems that the students would like to use social media in education in the future, but at the moment they do not think that such tools would be very useful for their studies. They would like a private environment managed by teachers and institutions where the activities are led by the teachers and their privacy is secure.

7 | Conclusions

This report describes the findings from interviews with administrators, teachers and students in educational institutions throughout Europe on the use of social media in education. The interviewees were interviewed about transitions, barriers, underachievement, attainment targets and much more. On the basis of the results of the interviews a model has been made that describes the different stages of adoption of social media in educational institutions. In this section the results of the interviews with all groups are combined and the ISTUS Adoption Model is presented.

7.1 Vision

All interviewed groups, administrators, teachers and students, are more or less positive towards an increased integration of social media in education. Administrators and teachers see it as a ‘must’ to face today’s and tomorrow’s markets. Students see integration as an option. In their view there should be a balance between traditional methods of learning and the use of social media. Students defined social media as tools to keep in touch with friends and colleagues or as tools for leisure and personal communication. Administrators and teachers use a broader definition of social media, like ICT and online, digital tools. While students are digital natives, teachers and staff have to become adept at new technologies and teachers have to adopt new tools for their teaching activities. Using social media will emphasise two-way learning. It will be easier to share content between teachers and students and social media provides increasing interaction, collaboration and communication among them. The trend is that there will be more student-generated content and students and teachers will become, in effect, ‘co- workers’. Students want teachers and institutions to be in control: teachers should lead the activities.

52 7 | Conclusions

7.2 Business Benefits

Administrators and teachers recognise that the use of social media for enhancing learning provides a number of business benefits to the organisations: increased geographic and financial accessibility of students/ increasing numbers of students; new markets; improving visibility of the institutions; increasing attractiveness of institutions; savings in travel cost; potentially enhancing reputation; keeping pace with technology; facilitating the development of distance and mixed learning programmes.

7.3 Contradictions

There are several noticeable issues which could be derived from the dimension of the perceived problems of using social media. information literacy; democratic nature of social media; identity issues; security issues; change of teaching/ learning processes; need for training to internalise social media; fusion between formal and informal learning; redefinition of educational institutions.

53 7 | Conclusions

7.4 Decision Points and Reasons

Why have social media been adopted, or are going to be used in the future and what are the main obstacles that have prevented the widespread adoption of social media in education? Although all groups see the advantages, they all see different obstacles to a widespread use of social media in the educational institutions. Tables 04 and 05 list advantages and obstacles as they are seen by different groups. Table 04 Advantages of use of social media

Advantages of use of social media Administrators Teachers Students 1 More/new opportunities for communication 2 More/ new opportunities for sharing information 3 Independence of time and place 4 Speed of communication 5 Improvement in the (worldwide) collaboration of group work 6 Increasing interaction and collaboration 7 Increasing visibility and reputation 8 Reaching more students 9 Increasing student responsibility 10 Useful as a service and marketing tool 11 Easy and enjoyable to use 12 Reducing costs 13 Facilitating the development of distance learning programmes

Table 05 Obstacles to a widespread use of social media in the educational institutions

Obstacles Administrators Teachers Students 1 It takes a lot of time 2 Lack of reliability of the information 3 Overheads to learn how to use new technologies 4 Lack of physical contact 5 Need for technical support 6 Privacy issues 7 Fear of social media addiction 8 Ongoing maintenance 9 Security and copyright issues 10 Highly distractive 11 Waste of time with technical difficulties 12 Possibility of misunderstandings 13 More fragmented work time 14 Lack of resources to change the institutions pedagogical strategy 15 Lack of an educational strategy where social media are explicitly included 16 General unwillingness among teachers to change () their traditional way of teaching

54 7 | Conclusions

7.5 Basic Changes Needed

The overall culture of educational institutions towards using social media in a learning environment is generally positive, but basic changes are required in order to incorporate social media in the learning environment: A different internal culture in educational institutions is needed. Teachers said that there is little willingness among teachers to think ‘outside the box’ to adopt non-traditional ways of teaching. Institutions need a coherent plan to implement social media in the learning and teaching process. There is a need for social media policy. The institutions have to provide infrastructure and resources to train and guide teachers to increase the social media competences. Teachers need time to acquire the skills, organise the courses and create content. In conclusion, it seems that the main problem with incorporating social media into the learning environment is not technological, but organisational: the technology is already available, what is required is a change in the current education policy and in the staff mindset.

7.6 The ISTUS Adoption Model

The ISTUS Adoption Model describes a hypothetical development path for educational institutions utilising social media. The model is based on the statements from the interviews with administrators, teachers and students concerning the use of social media in their institutions. The interviewees were questioned about transitions, barriers, underachievement, attainment targets and much more. The model describes the hypothetical development path in major and minor steps. In most cases, an institution will show some characteristics from the previous level as well as some facets of minor steps from the next level.

8 | References

Alexa Rankings, viewed 30 July 2013, http://www.alexa.com/topsites. American Library Association (1989) ‘Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education’, viewed 29 July 2013, http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency. Bauman, Z (2011) Vartojamas gyvenimas. Vilnius: Apostrofa. Boyd, DM & Ellison, NB (2007) ‘Social Network Sites’: Definition, History and Scholar- ship, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(1), 210–230. Castells, M (2007) Tūkstantmečio pabaiga . Kaunas: Poligrafija ir informatika. Chamblee, G & Slough, S (2004) ‘Using the Concerns-Based Adoption Model to As- sess Changes in Technology Implementation’, Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education, International Conference 2004 2004(1), 864–871. Deleuze G & Parnet C (1987) Dialogues . London: The Athlone Press. Facebook News, viewed 30 July 2013, http://newsroom.fb.com/Key-Facts. Foucault M (1998) Disciplinuoti ir bausti: kalėjimo gimimas . Vilnius: Baltos lankos. Glastra, FJ, Hake, BJ, Schedler, PE (2004) Lifelong Learning as Transitional Learning. Adult Education Quartely , 54(4), 291–307. Glenn, D (2012), ‘The History of Social Media from 1978–2012’, Social Times , viewed 30 July 2013, http://socialtimes.com/the-history-of-social-media-from-1978–2012– infographic_b89811. Hall, GE & Hord, SM (1987) Taking Charge of Change. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Kaplan, AM & Haenlein, M (2010) ‘Users of the World Unite! The Challenges and Op- portunities of Social Media’, Science Direct 53, 59–68. Marshall, S (2005) ‘Determination of New Zealand Tertiary Institution E-learning Capability: An Application of an E-learning Maturity Model’, Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning 9(1), 58–63. Mayring, P (2004) ‘Qualitative Content Analysis’, in U Flick et al. A Companion to Qualitative Research . London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE, 266–269. McLuhan, M (2003) Kaip suprasti medijas žmogaus tęsiniai . Vilnius: Baltos lankos. Prensky, M (2001) ‘On the Horizon’, MCB University Press 9(5), 23–32.

56 8 | References

Selwyn, N (2012) ‘Social Media in Higher Education’, The Europa World of Learning 2012, viewed 30 July 2013, http://www.educationarena.com/pdf/sample/sample- essay-selwyn.pdf. Siemens, G (2004) Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age , viewed 30 July 2013, http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm. Smith, C (2013) By the Numbers: 10 Amazing Twitter facts , viewed 30 July 2013, http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/march-2013-by-the-numbers-a-few- amazing-twitter-stats/. Straub, ET (2009) ‘Understanding Technology Adoption: Theory and Future Direc- tions for Informal Learning’, Review of Educational Research 79, 625–649. Touré, H (2012) Opening Speech, International Telecommunication Union, viewed 25 July 2013, http://www.itu.int/en/osg/speeches/Pages/2012-02-02.aspx Wikipedia (2013) Wiki . Viewed 30 July 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki. Witzel, A & Reiter, H (2012) The Problem-Centred Interview . London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi & Singapore: Sage.

9 | Acknowl- edgements

Financial support for this Grundtvig learning partnership was provided by the European Commission through their National Agencies as part of the Lifelong Learning Programme (grant agreement from August 2011 to July 2013, number 2011-1-DE2-GRU06-07798 1). The participants in the project would like to thank the European Commission for this opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences, while building sus- tainable relationships across institutional and national borders. In addition, staff and learners who contributed to the project wish to thank their institution for offering the time and the space to accomplish this work. The authors of this report express their gratitude to the educational institutions where the research activities took place, and especially to students, teachers and administrators involved, for their contribution to the field study that has been presented here.

58 9 | Acknowledgements

The ISTUS partners in Tampere, Finland (June 2012)

Kylene De Angelis | Nadia Catenazzi | Melanie Graham | Michael Klebl | Viktorija Mažeikienė | Giedrė Valūnaitė Oleškevičienė | Kirsty Palfreyman | Kirsty Reid | Jolita Šliogerienė | Jarno Tolonen | Jeffrey van Zaalen ISTUS Report Institutional Strategies for the Uptake of Social Media in Adult Education The ISTUS Project is a Grundtvig Learning Partnership for the European Lifelong Learning Programme. Duration: Autumn 2011 – Autumn 2013 Published 2013 by the ISTUS Project at MRU ebooks, Vilnius (Lithuania) ISBN 978-9955-19-583-2 | http://ebooks.mruni.eu