Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Social media in higher education: Pros, cons, and overall impact

A new infograph illustrates social media’s surge in popularity in the last three academic years.

Once regarded as a passing fad, social media is now an essential language that today’s college students—and officials—must learn in order to remain relevant and well-informed.

The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently surveyed numerous four-year accredited U.S. colleges and universities to assess the use of social media in higher education.

The study’s findings are based on 456 interviews conducted between November to May of the 2010-11 academic year. UMass Dartmouth previously assessed social media findings for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 academic years.…Read More

How colleges can stay on the leading edge of social media

Nearly every U.S. college has an official Facebook page.

Dean Tsouvalas, editor-in-chief of StudentAdvisor.com, recently interviewed Nora Barnes, a chancellor professor of marketing and director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, about the Center’s newest study, titled “Social Media Adoption Soars as Higher-Ed Experiments and Reevaluates Its Use of New Communications Tools.”

The new report is the outcome of a statistically valid study of the nation’s four-year accredited colleges and universities.

The study examined these institutions to quantify their adoption of social media tools and technologies. This is the fourth year that UMass-Dartmouth has tracked social media adoption by the higher-education sector. The findings are based on 456 interviews conducted during the 2010-11 academic year and have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.…Read More