Facebook as a pre-induction support tool

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will know that we trialled using Facebook to support induction for our new undergraduate intake this year. It was definitely a positive experience, and now some two months later, I've had a chance to take stock, do some analysis and reflect on what it was good for (or not).
The group had a pretty good intake (80 out of 120 new students), but it's more interesting to look at the actual patterns of participation. Of the 80 students who joined the group, 39 of them actively contributed to the discussions (either writing on the wall or starting a discussion thread). Of those 39 students,

• 59% wrote one post only
  31% wrote 5 or less wall posts
  8% wrote 10 or less wall posts
  2% wrote more than 10 wall posts.

This works out roughly at a participation ratio of 30 - 15 - 4 - 1, a bit more encouraging than Reilly's 90-9-1 predictions. And of course, this doesn't reflect the emails that students were sending each other - only the public communication on the group itself.
The topics that they wrote about were a good indication of what the students used the group for: getting specific information about what was needed for the start of term and introducing themselves to each other. The most frequent topics (those with 10 posts or more on the wall) were about:

• purchasing books
  reading lists
  greeting/introduction
  accommodation
  timetable
  routeway choices

So what can we learn from this? Well, I will ensure that all the information going out to new students has even clearer instructions about where students can buy their books and what they need to read in which order, and I'll be adding a FAQ sheet to our joining instructions to give them the information as soon as they have their results and an offer confirmed from us.

My next plans? I'm toying with the idea of starting a group for our current first years and final years to talk to prospective students as a way of enhancing the visit days. And in the meantime, I'll be talking about this to delegates at the ESC event Encouraging Student Interaction Online in January, and Legal and General have even been interested the research as a means of supporting their new starters! I'm delighted, too that the work we have done will be published as a JISC study in the use of social software.

Facebook Fresher's group: Success story

Yesterday was the last day of our induction week. I'm pretty happy with the way the whole week went: no small feat given that I only took over as Course Director for our BA programmes less than a month ago. One of the great things has definitely been the take up and use of the Facebook group for the Freshers. At the beginning of the week we had 62 students joined up, and at the last look, 84 students out of an intake of around 120. But the numbers aren't everything - it's how the students evaluated it.

It won't surprise you at all to know that they loved the fact they could make friends with their fellow students before they even got here. That made a huge difference on the first day when it was so much easier to strike up conversations. But they also really appreciated the fact that they could ask questions and get the clarification they needed before arriving. Some of this came from me, but some of it also came from the students too, especially our student mentors who played a brilliant part in offering advice and encouragement from a student perspective. And to my pleasant surprise, conversations about the books they are going to be studying already started happening too.

The strength of using Facebook is that many of the students are already using it. I wasn't asking them to take on yet another new form information, but tapping into a forum they are already familiar with. And, as a social networking site, that is what it is best at: encouraging friendships and connections that build the social cohesion so important for good progression and retention. There are things that I don't like, like the inability to upload documents into groups. But we will definitely keep the group going (at the students' request) so they can in touch with each other, and probably as a tool for student representation too.

Facebook and students - who should speak?

Well, I'm back from my summer holidays now, and getting ready for the start of the new year. It's great to see that the Facebook group for the new Freshers joining the School of English is going well. I'm waiting to see if we can get it up to 50 members by the start of induction - it's nearly there!

The group seems to be doing it's job - the new students are writing away on the wall introducing themselves and asking questions. So if you're joining us and you haven't signed up for it yet - please do! From my point of view, I think the group is doing what I wanted it to. I am increasingly convinced that Facebook in academic contexts really is for the students to use as a 'hang out' social space, not really as a forum for academic discussion. Of course, that doesn't mean that students can't talk about their studies (it is (nearly) always great when they do) - it's just that the kinds of discussions I think should be generated by them and based on what they find important. I see my role as a 'gatekeeper', watching out for inappropriate content and so on, hopefully seeding the conversation from time to time with questions. But if you are a student reading this, what do you think? Would you want your lecturers talking to you on Facebook? And if you do - what would you want to be talking about?

I'm going to keep using Facebook for sure though - certainly as a way of keeping in touch with my personal tutees. And we'll have to evaluate what the freshers thought of the group when they get to induction!

Facebook group for English Freshers

If you're joining the School of English at Birmingham City University next September, please join the Facebook Fresher's group we've set up for you! We hope that this will be a great resource for you to meet up online before we get to meet you in person in September.

I'm keeping a tally to see how fast we can get this group to grow, so the clock has started...