This week in the Mojo we take a look at social media in higher education. First, we explore Tanya Joosten, Laura Pasquini, and Lindsey Harness' article, "Guiding Social Media at Our Institutions."

Social media can be a powerful resource for high education institutions as a means of broadcasting information and engaging the academic community. This article seeks to identify trends, address concerns, and make recommendations regarding social media use.

Weighing both sides of the issue:

• Concerns: monitoring online behavior, identity thief, privacy, FERPA/FIPPA, maintaining university image, control, ownership, required trainings
• Benefits: interaction and engagement beyond the formal learning environment

What is the role of "digital literacy" in higher education and how is it linked to social media?

•  "continuous discovery, digital curation, network development, connect to real-world issues"
• " interdisciplinary experiences and activities that facilitate group discussion, problem-solving, active reading, and critical thinking"
• " communication and marketing efforts, student support services, and recruitment and orientation efforts"

"How are institutions guiding the use of social media on their campuses?"

1. Broadcast medium: "...a new mechanism to transmit and disseminate official university communications to a large audience."
2. Partial redesignation:  "position(s) originated in response to the growing interest of social media’s role in higher education."

" For many institutions, technologies such as Twitter and Facebook are perceived as a strategy for broadcasting news to a large population, but not as tools with pedagogical value or worthy of research support."

Can and should higher education institutions facilitate greater use of social media through institutional support, resources, training, and incentives?