Management of social networks in the educational process

• Published in: Computers in human behavior 2015-10, Vol.51, p.890-895
• Main Authors: Mora Mora, Higinio, Signes Pont, María Teresa, De Miguel Casado, Gregorio, Gilart Iglesias, Virgilio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Community Manager; Educational process; Social interaction; Social networks
• ISSN: 0747-5632; 1873-7692
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.010

•Social networks are complementary to educational websites to reach all aspects of learning.•Disclosure through social networks is faster and wider than through educational websites.•Community Manager in educational context is proved to be useful. The research developed in this work consists in proposing a set of techniques for management of social networks and their integration into the educational process. The proposals made are based on assumptions that have been proven with simple examples in a real scenario of university teaching. The results show that social networks have more capacity to spread information than educational web platforms. Moreover, educational social networks are developed in a context of freedom of expression intrinsically linked to Internet freedom. In that context, users can write opinions or comments which are not liked by the staff of schools. However, this feature can be exploited to enrich the educational process and improve the quality of their achievement. The network has covered needs and created new ones. So, the figure of the Community Manager is proposed as agent in educational context for monitoring network and aims to channel the opinions and to provide a rapid response to an academic problem.