Social media enhanced studying and learning in higher education

Social media services have recently become well known especially among young people [1]. In social networking sites a user can participate intensively in activities in the service. To support collaborative study at Tampere University of Technology (TUT) and also to provide social networking tools for students especially at the beginning their studies, the development TUT´s own social network site was begun in spring 2008. To make the system popular among students, developers and researchers at the Department of Mathematics and Hypermedia Laboratory at TUT designed interventions for fall 2009 when the semester began and new students started their studies. The earlier research [2] revealed numerous motivating aspects that should be somehow included in a study oriented social networking site. This paper will describe the research results of interventions to motivate students to use a social networking site in the context of studies. The results will show that such an environment with social aspects connected to studying and study life on various levels is a means of enhancing studies and basically a necessary tool, especially for students in the early phase of their studies in a new university. The motivation should be further encouraged by the system itself when it relies on students´ own voluntary activity. Moreover, the intensive actions of developers, researchers and administrators can be used as tools in directing network activity development.