Social Media in Business Higher Education

Unit Description:

This unit is designed to give students an understanding of how Social Media is being utilized in higher education and the undergraduate and graduate level in business education.  Because of the nature of business and business education, business educators as a group have been one of the leaders of incorporating social media in to their education.  Many Business educators use social networks to increase engagement in the classroom, as well as teach its importance in business. This unit is an introduction to using social media in formal business educational settings.

 

Learning Outcomes:

• Explore how business educators are using social media within their business courses
• Explore how business schools are staying connected to students, alumni, and local communities
• Analyze how business educators are utilizing social media and how you may be able to translate in to your teaching
• Collaborate with others to share examples of social media in use for business education
• Create a curation of business resources
• Reflect on your learning on social media within business education and explore ideas for use in your teaching

 

Performance and Participation Expectations:

For social media to be effective and get the most out of its abilities, it requires users to be highly engaged.  Given that this is a course about social media, I expect students to be highly engaged to facilitate learning in this course, including at minimum:

• Log-in to the chosen social media sites/tools at least once a day
• Share/contribute to the chosen social media sites at least once every other day
• The above sharing and contributions should add value.  Comments like “nice work” are fine and encouraged, but more meaningful engagement is needed to meet the above requirements
• Frequent collaboration with others to develop tools and ideas
• All sharing and comments should be; positive, encouraging, constructive, and topic appropriate.
• Please keep all contributions focused on the topics at hand

 

Social Media Guidelines:

Below are the social media guidelines for University and this course:

1.  Definition—The University defines social media as an online publication with commentary, including without limitation to blogs, wikis, and social networking sites, such as; Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Blogger, Snapchat, Pinterest, Foursquare, Tumblr, and Instagram.

2.  Approval--All Social Media Accounts should be approved by the Marketing, Communications, and Public Relations Dept.  Contact the Director with your name and contact information and any others who operate and maintain your social media presence, as well as the URL for your account.

3.  Branding—Please use a University approved account name and photo. This ensures adherence to the University’s visual identity guidelines and proper branding.  If needed, please contact the Marketing, Communications, and Public Relations Dept. for proper materials.

4.  Shared Access--Give account access to at least one other University faculty of staff member. A university employee must have access to your account, to ensure no account is ever left unmonitored. 

5.  Management—When creating a social media account, make sure you have the time and resources to be useful, relevant, compelling and engaged.  Remember you are representing the university and its brand, and must be protected and held to a high regard.

6.  Consideration—The University prohibits discrimination or harassment by or toward students or employees for any reason or on any basis.  Posts, comments, or photos of this nature will be removed from official sites, and disciplinary action will be taken.

7.  Purpose--Social Media is about conversation, connection and community. Please use social media for this purpose, and limit its use as a “venting” or marketing tool.

8.  Transparency—Social media allows a great opportunity to connect the University to a larger community on a regular basis.  Therefore keeping all social media authentic, honest, and transparency is the responsibility of the University and those maintaining the University’s social media.

9.  Reaction--Social Media allows you to hear what people say about you and to respond. It is important to consider this and listen first, and respond second, or not at all on social media.  Social media can magnify conversations that should take place one on one.

10. Responsibility—It is the responsibility of the University employees and students to stay up to date and aware of the University social media policies and guidelines.  Given the fluid nature and constant changing environment of social media, the policies and guidelines will be constantly evolving.  Please check the social media guidelines and policies frequently (at least twice a year) to ensure you are within the University guidelines. 

 

Social Media Tools

Facebook:  I have created a Facebook group for this course.  This group will be used to share resources, ideas, and comments on social media in use in business schools.  Everyone is expected to create a Facebook account or use your existing one and join this group.  Here is a link to the Social Media in Business Education Facebook Group (Links to an external site.).

Blogs: You are expected to create a blog for this course.  You will write reflections, comment, and share information from these blogs.  You may chose the platform you would like to use for your blog.  Google Blog (Links to an external site.) and Weebly (Links to an external site.) are two that I recommend, but you are free to use others.  You may do your own research to see which blog best fits you.

Video Sharing: There will be times when you will be expected to create a video and share it, or simply share a video created by someone else as a resource.  For this, I have created a YouTube channel for sharing for this course.  Please join this channel and be prepared to share throughout the unit.  Here is the link Social Media in Business Education YouTube Channel (Links to an external site.).

Synchronous Discussions:  From time to time throughout the course we will be having real time (synchronous) discussions you will need to participate in.  For this, I have created a Google+ page you will need to follow.  Here is the link to the Google+ page for Social Media in Business (Links to an external site.).

Information Sharing:  For this course you will be expected to regularly share information.  Everyone will need to create or use your existing Twitter account for this purpose.  When sharing information for this course, be sure to include the hashtag #SMIBE (Links to an external site.).  If you’re curious, it stands for Social Media In Business Education.

Curation:  Throughout the course, you will need to curate resources for the course.  This is a great practice to keep resources organized and readily available.  For this, we will be using Scoop.It (Links to an external site.) as our curation tool.  You can see an example of a curation page I created on Social Media in For Learning at this link (Links to an external site.). 

 

Student Interaction:

Social media is most effective when there is high interaction among its users.  Collaboration can produce higher engagement and facilitate learning.  To ensure we are collaborating on a regular basis, some assignments will require you to work in groups.  This will be your Personal Learning Network (PLN) and will consist of a group of two or three people. 

I am going to let you chose your PLN group members based on our interests or area of study.  I have started a Facebook post in our class group.  Reply to this post with your area of study, and two words that describe how you will be an asset your PLN group.  Here is the link to the post (Links to an external site.), and I have given an example of the type of post you should include.

Once you have identified your PLN group members, you will need to create a social media networking tool to collaborate that is open to your group members only.  You may choose to create a group in Facebook, Google+, or one of the many other options available.  Be sure to invite only your small group members to the networking tool.

Each week you will be asked to write a blog post on the topic you covered for that week.  The blog post should include the following and anything else you would like to add:

• What you learned and found interesting
• How you collaborated (or did not) with your PLN group to complete the project
• How you will incorporate what you learned this week in to your teaching/profession
• How you plan on continuing to learn about the topic beyond this week’s project

After you complete you blog post, you will need to share the blog post this class on at least two of the social network tools assigned for the course.  One of those tools must be the group Facebook page, the other can be whatever tool you prefer.

 

Monitoring, Announcements, Summary & Dissemination:

As the instructor, I will be monitoring all interaction that is linked to our social media networking sites and tools.  To do this, I will be using Netvibes (Links to an external site.).  Anything posted on our group pages, or using the #SMIBE or any other course tags or hashtags will be fed to me through Netvibes.  This will be allow me to monitor the appropriateness of the comments and posts as well as the level of engagement and activity.

All announcements made within the course will be made through our Canvas Announcements link as well as on our Facebook group page. 

I will comment on ALL student original posts in the platform they are shared in.  To ensure you are activity utilized the various social networking tools—all summaries, comments, and questions about your particular project for that week will ONLY be posted in that social media tool.  I will continue to make general announcements and disseminate information to the entire course through Canvas and our group Facebook page.  But all communication about your particular project will only be posted in the original platform.

 

Learning Activities: Assignment List

Learning Activity #1: Using Linkedin to form your professional Network

Learning Activity #2: Using Google+ as a Business Resource

Learning Activity #3: Create a curation of business resources

Learning Activity #4: Connect with business educators on Twitter and other social media