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Informal Online

Student Communities:

The interactions of higher education students amongst themselves and with course content

in a private Facebook group

Luc Edward Henry Palsrok Student number 10119701

Final Thesis version 23-06-2017

MSc Business Administration Digital Business track Amsterdam Business School

University of Amsterdam

Supervised by Prof. dr. P.J. van Baalen

Word count 11,732

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Abstract: In this thesis, the ways in which students interact in informal online student

communities on Facebook are investigated through the analysis of over 1500 student

contributions in the group of ‘Digital Business’ students, a study track belonging to the Business Administration MSc program of the University of Amsterdam. Informal learning concerns interactions between students and their required content with no direct influence from an educational presence. Data was filtered on specific themes and courses as well as the

theoretical or analytic nature of the content students dealt with. While previous research found

that only a small part of interactions of students on Facebook were academical in nature, albeit in a public setting, this research found a huge academical activity amongst students in the group. Results show that students are very involved in reaching their goals and that Facebook is an important mediator in this. Large collaboration efforts were observed as well as a striking altruistic open-source spirit. In-depth content discussions were multiple in number and showed a high level of reflectivity in order to obtain the correct answers. Alternatively, there was little discussion on a course which asked more offline involvement from students. As such, it is concluded that course requirements and structure are predictors of student interactions in

informal online student communities.

Statement of originality

This document is written by Luc Palsrok who declares to take full

responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is

original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and

its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the

supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Table of Contents

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY & ABSTRACT 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

1. INTRODUCTION 4

2. LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Types of learning and education 8

2.2 Potential benefits of informal online student communities 10 2.2.1 Social community for a geographically dispersed cohort 10 2.2.2 Facebook as a ‘Learning Management System’ (LMS) 12

2.2.3 Peer teaching 13

2.2.4 Resource sharing 14

2.2.5 Analysis of the potential benefits 14

2.3 Interactions within the informal online social community 15 2.3.1 Selwyn: Exploring students’ education-related use of Facebook 16 2.3.2 Vivian et al.: Academic journey of students on Facebook 17 2.3.3 A deeper understanding of student interactions on Facebook 18

3. DATA AND METHOD 19

3.1 Data collection 19

3.1.1 Ethics and privacy 19

3.1.2 The dataset 20

3.2 Method 21

3.2.1 Theories of Digital Business 22

3.2.2 Digital Business Innovation 23

3.2.3 Digital Marketing & Analytics 23

3.2.4 Thesis 23

3.2.5 Social / General Study Related 24

3.2.6. Further analysis 24

4. RESULTS 24

4.1 The community 24

4.2 The interactions 27

4.2.1 Theories of Digital Business 27

4.2.2 Digital Business Innovation 31

4.2.3 Digital Marketing & Analytics 34

4.2.4 Thesis 35

5. DISCUSSION 36

5.1 Limitations and future research 40

6. CONCLUSION 41

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1. Introduction

An often-heard phrase is that it is harder to stay on top than it is to make the climb. One of the most abundant patterns seen in business is that of companies being unable to adapt to disruptive technologies, as it is difficult to assess which technologies are actual threats and what their strategic implications could be (Bower and Christensen, 1995). These disruptive technologies or disruptive innovations are characterized by their targeting of large, overlooked groups which can be facilitated by delivering better functioning and often lower-priced alternatives with which they can surprise market leaders (Christensen et al., 2015). Many of these innovations have been largely influenced by the rise of the internet which has made it possible to satisfy a potentially infinite number of people in, for example, their demand of knowledge. The distribution of knowledge has been deemed the most important converging force in social-economic inequality (Piketty, 2013) and is thus of the utmost importance to the world as we know it. Following Maslow (1943), a gain of knowledge is on one hand a tool to achieve basic safety in the world, and on the other, a way for intelligent people to increase self-actualization, which is placed on the top of the ‘hierarchy of needs’ pyramid.

In this day and age, people are able to gather knowledge from all corners of the internet. Through distance education, it has been made possible to provide courses wherever, whenever and to whomever, in an asynchronous manner (Keegan, 1986). For educational institutions, the increasing connectivity has allowed for expansion of activities to online channels. Some universities offer courses including official credit to purchase and complete in full through the internet to prospective students, while most are infusing traditional offline courses with online content as well. This last part is referred to as blended learning, which is defined by Garrison and Kanuka (2004) as follows:

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“At its simplest, blended learning is the thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences.”

The implementation of blended learning has been described as a low-risk and effective way for universities to innovate and keep up with technological advancements (Garrison and Kanuka, 2004). With the rapid advancements of the ‘web 2.0’, social media, and the expectations of new generations, one can however pose the question if educational systems are evolving at a fast-enough pace. The disruptive technology of the internet and its corresponding connectivity has led to a world in which students have the ability to educate themselves outside of the platforms offered by traditional institutions like universities. These online informal learning

platforms are plenty in number, offering all sorts of knowledge available, shared by both

individuals as well as communities. Content-wise, an infinite amount of web pages, videos and message boards are available on which interactions with strangers as well as acquaintances occur, both in a synchronous and asynchronous manner. Following Garrison & Vaughan (2008), students who have never known a world without interactive technology might expect a more engaging learning experience than they would get from traditional lectures. A similar statement has been made by Williams & Chin (2009), who say that “net generation” students have different styles and expectations. Mapping the spectrum of how students learn in this day and age can be a very important asset for universities in order to keep up with possible changes in the educational ecosystem. From the research in this field, educational institutions have the opportunity to redesign blended learning and provide a more continuously engaging learning process (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008).

Anderson (2003) states that there is a trifecta of interactions which lead to higher learning, namely the interactions student-teacher, student-student and student-content. As long as at least two of the three interactions are at a high level, higher learning can be achieved. Generally, a distinction between two forms of learning is made; through formal or informal education.

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Following the definitions of Eshach (2007), formal education is defined as “usually at school, structured, and teacher-led”, while informal learning can “happen anywhere, is unstructured, supportive, spontaneous and voluntary as well as usually learner-led”. From this definition, it can be concluded that in the informal environment, the student-teacher interaction has disappeared. For institutions of higher education making use of blended learning environments, this should not be considered a problem as the informal learning environment can be seen as supportive rather than autonomous. It however is important that the informal learning environment does not teach wrong truths. This supportive informal education bridges the emotional and intellectual domains (Scribner and Cole, 1973), which in turn could affect self-actualization (Maslow, 1943) and lead to higher learning (Anderson, 2003).

One of the platforms students abundantly use in their informal learning is social media. It has been shown that social media has become an integral part of the college experience, while highly self-motivated (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2011). Even though a large variety of social media exists, there is no doubt that at least in the modern Western world, Facebook enjoys the largest userbase. Within the age group of 18 to 29-year-olds, 88% of Americans use Facebook, 76% of whom use it every day (Pew Research Center, 2016). The possibilities of Facebook use for educational purposes have become apparent in recent years, with a multitude of researchers identifying the social and intellectual aspects, which both contribute to a students’ life (Yu et

al., 2010; McLoughlin & Lee, 2010; Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012). It is thus interesting to

research how the student-student and student-content interactions on Facebook play a role in higher learning as presented by Anderson (2003). This means investigating how student communities of higher educational institutions work, how active they are, and if there are conditions under which these findings might change.

From the definitions presented earlier, informal online student communities can be seen as supportive, spontaneous and voluntary as well as learner-led. Following Bateman & Willems

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(2012), there are multiple potential benefits of Facebook use in higher education; as a social community; an alternative learning management system (LMS); a peer teaching platform or resource sharing entity. This thesis examines whether all of these positive characteristics of Facebook are visible within informal online student communities or if they are more formal in nature, and how they play a role within these communities.

An analysis of publicly-posted student content over the course of a semester has already shown that there is a spike in academically-related activity on Facebook when exams or deadlines get closer (Vivian et al., 2014), but no research has been done on the ways in which students interact amongst themselves and with course requirements in Facebook ‘Groups’, which serve as informal communities. This is most likely due to the private nature of these groups, as researchers do not have access to these communities. While most research has focused on the effects of Facebook on student engagement or performance, mostly mediated by social interactions, research has not yet provided an insight to the academically oriented interactions going on within Facebook groups. More specifically, it is interesting to find out how students handle the variety of academic challenges they face as there may well be newly developed student interactions designed to reach course goals in an easier way. It could be conceived as logical to state that students most likely have adapted to the use of Facebook in their studies, and that they will have found new means to an end. As such, the research question which will be answered in this thesis is as follows:

“How do students interact in informal online student communities on Facebook, and how do

these interactions vary depending on different course requirements and structures?”

In order to be able to answer this question, the Facebook group of the “Digital Business 2016-2017” track, which belongs to the MSc in Business Administration offered by the University of Amsterdam, was analyzed according to the content belonging to different courses within the

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track. This resulted in a dataset covering over 1500 entries, made up of postings by students and the comments and contributions of their peers. Basic properties are elaborated upon concerning the structure of the group and its members. Courses were differentiated upon their respective natures, theoretical or analytical, and linked with various interactions between students and with course content.

In the following section the literature will be reviewed on key theoretical aspects of this topic, providing a deep understanding of the core elements relating to the informal online student

communities. The methodology and data collection will be explained in full after which the

results of the data analysis will be elaborated upon. From these results, the research question will be answered and discussed thoroughly before conclusions are presented. Finally, the writer’s views on future research possibilities will be given.

2. Literature review

2.1 Types of learning and education

Learning can occur in a multitude of ways. Any experience any one individual has can potentially be described as learning. There are various paradigms on what learning is, from the classical conditioning of Pavlov and Skinner to the complex cognitivist view of Plato. For this thesis, however, the definition as posed by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2017) will suffice:

“Learning is the acquiring of knowledge or skills by instruction or study.”

Within this paradigm, and from a hierarchical stance point, there are two ways of learning,

formal and informal. As indicated in the introduction by definition of Eshach (2007), formal

learning takes place at school, is structured and led by a teaching presence. Schugurensky (2000) defines it a little broader, as any learning directly connected to the ‘institutional ladder’

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that starts at preschool and reaches all the way to graduate studies. It is characterized by a hierarchical system which ranges from students to the ministry of education and measured through grades and certificates.

Opposite, is informal learning. While Scribner and Cole (1973) use this in a context of parents teaching children, it is much more than that. Coombs and Ahmed (1974; in La Belle, 1982) define it as “the lifelong process by which every person acquires and accumulates knowledge,

skills, attitudes and insights from daily experiences and exposure to the environment”. While

this indeed attributes many of an individual’s daily experiences to informal learning, this thesis uses the definition of Eshach (2007), who indicates that informal learning is voluntarily, spontaneous, supportive and learner-led. The distinction between formal and informal interactions in this thesis is made solely on the absence of a teacher within the informal online

student community. This means that even if the learning materials are provided by the

educational institution, interactions are deemed informal as long as there is no formal teaching presence which directly influences interactions between students and their content.

Within informal learning, distinctions can be made between online and offline learning. Obviously, anything which is not mediated by connective technology can be deemed offline. Online learning can happen on a multitude of platforms, but for informal learning it is important to emphasize that it can never be influenced by a formal interference, as it would be defined as

blended learning in this case. Blended learning, as defined in the introduction by Garrison and

Kanuka (2004) is the integration of classroom face-to-face (offline) learning with online learning. The influence of classroom learning makes blended learning inherently formal in nature. In this research, this would mean that any Facebook group containing a teaching presence is classified as a formal online student community rather than the informal online

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2.2 Potential benefits of informal online student communities

It can be said with confidence that for most modern-day students, the use of online social technology comes natural. For Facebook, one of the most apparent possibilities of the technology is the ability to create user groups, public or private, in which all kinds of content can be shared with one another and commented on by peers who are also in that group. It is thus extremely logical that students would create these groups for themselves as well. Bateman & Willems (2012) offer four potential benefits for Facebook use in higher education. These will be elaborated upon in the upcoming section.

2.2.1 Social community for a geographically dispersed cohort

In this flexible time, students no longer need to be present at an exact location in order to be able to learn, regardless of the formal or informal nature of learning. This, however, does not mean that everything has changed all at once. Students still attend lectures and tutorials and they still interact face-to-face. Additionally, the online environment allows them to expand their interactions to Facebook and other social media. Being present and actively using Facebook can assist them in adjusting to university life as it increases their abilities to participate in activities and positively influences their beliefs in their academic abilities (DeAndrea et al., 2012). It also increases the sense of connectedness between group members (Beldarrain, 2006), and online social networking engagement on Facebook has shown to increase both social acceptance and acculturation in socialization efforts by university students (Yu et al., 2010). Selwyn (2009) also states that Facebook appears to be important and valuable towards the university experience of students, that it serves as an extension for their offline conversations, and thus should be kept ‘backstage’. Again, it seems apparent from research that a formal influence on Facebook is not something students appreciate. A similar claim is made in the research of Maleko et al. (2013), where important characteristics of a Facebook group

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are defined as the ability to express dissatisfaction, which is harder to do when an authority might read what a student has written. But even in a community which is private and consists of only peers, students are mindful of what they write. Bouhnik & Marcus (2006) call this a culture of reflection. This stems from the asynchronous nature of online discussion platforms, which allows students to reflect on what other people have written before responding, for which a far shorter time is natural in face-to-face encounters. When they make contributions of their own, most students will not do so on a whim.

So, what are the characteristics of these communities? How actively engaged are students within them and what are students’ perceptions of each other? Is there a hierarchy within the group? Zhao & Kuh (2004) established that participating in such a community is positively linked to engagement and leads to better outcomes and satisfaction with university life.Tinto (2003) states that an important aspect of how involved students are in offline learning communities is how well they know each other socially, which can be influenced by the number of courses students take together. The intellectual bond is then stronger when social bonds are stronger as well. In research on an online course by Poole (2000), engagement levels were found to change when a moderation role was assigned to students. Such social responsibilities can thus play a role in community building, and they might be intentionally taken up by students in informal online student communities. This could then form a community in which some of the more engaged students try to set up community efforts or keep discussions going. Bouhnik & Marcus (2006) interestingly noted that because of the asynchronous character of these groups, all students have a voice and no single student is dominant. Still, it can be expected that certain students are more active than others, even though their dominance is no longer influential.

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2.2.2 Facebook as a Learning Management System (LMS)

Learning Management Systems, or LMS, are widely used in institutions of higher education in order to facilitate learning at a distance, to share resources or relay messages to students. In traditional higher learning, it is used to complement any and all offline learning (Bateman & Willems, 2012). The most commonly known LMS is Blackboard Learn, which serves countless universities and businesses around the world. The question if Facebook can be used as an alternative LMS has been widely addressed by researchers (DeSchryver et al., 2009; Roblyer

et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2012; Maleko et al., 2013; Miron & Ravid, 2015), but outcomes have

not been consistent. For instance, while Miron & Ravid (2015) were very positive towards Facebook groups as an LMS, based on favorable attitudes from both students and educators, Roblyer et al. (2010) found that students were much more open to the introduction of Facebook as an LMS compared to faculty. Even though DeSchryver et al. (2009) indicate they feel strongly that Facebook provides many benefits compared to traditional LMSs, they did not find any empirical evidence for this. Wang et al. (2012) showed similar results of student satisfaction towards Facebook, however also found technical limitations relating to resource sharing and the ability to find old discussions. Additionally, they found that students expressed concerns in regards to their privacy. This last factor is a commonly voiced concern (Irwin et

al., 2012; Bateman & Willems, 2012) and is inherent to the presence of a teacher or teacher’s

assistant within an educational Facebook group. Learning Management Systems are formal by nature as they are an educators’ tool. Students’ concerns regarding privacy thus seem justifiable, as Facebook was originally designed to enhance a student’s online social network and not as a formal network established for people to interact with employers or educators. While there undoubtedly are many instances in which Facebook can facilitate formal education, students seem to value an informal communication platform as well. Miron & Ravid (2015)

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found that even though Facebook was used as a LMS in specific courses they tracked, students still made parallel Facebook groups which did not involve any formal university presence. 2.2.3 Peer teaching

The third potential benefit as identified by Bateman & Willems (2012) is that of peer teaching, which they state fulfills all three facets of a teaching presence, consisting of:

- Selection of discussion subject and emphasize focus on this aspect; - Facilitating the discussion;

- Providing direct instruction such as content, feedback and working through problems.

As indicated earlier, the informal online student community can be seen as supportive, voluntary and learner-led. This means that students have to grab the possibilities offered to them by technology to interact and study together online. In the Personal Learning

Environments as posed by Dabbagh & Kitsantas (2012), informal learning occurs through

observation, listening, discussing and reflecting. According to the Social Learning Theory of Bandura (1977), three entities are responsible for one’s learning outcome. These are individual learners, peers, and situations, all of which continuously interact. The theory adheres to a constructivist view in which individuals regulate their own learning by acquiring and structuring the information which is presented to them. The social process in which students interact with peers is also heavily dependent on context, or environment. Combined, this results in a continuous interaction where social support of peers reinforces learning outcomes.

As Boud, Cohen & Sampson (2001) say, the first thing a student usually does when faced with a problem, is ask another student. This indicates the importance of the interactions amongst students, be it online or offline. They also state that a student’s ability to judge if information presented to them is accurate is far more important than being able to reproduce accurate information given to them by a teacher or book (Boud et al., 2001). This is probably the key

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aspect of peer learning and teaching; being able to discuss and reflect on information obtained or presented.

2.2.4 Resource sharing

The fourth and final identified potential benefit of Facebook use for educational purposes is that of resource sharing, which is made up of any activities in which students openly or privately share any piece of media; documents, audio, video and the like (Mazman & Usluel, 2010). One can imagine that the technology available gives students the ability to share information which can lead to attaining their educational goals through shortcuts, such as the sharing of summaries, old exams and more. The ever-faster changing world requires us to adapt our way of learning as it is unlikely that the current methods of teaching and learning are sufficient for students to be successful throughout the rest of their lives (Brown & Adler, 2008). The question, however, is if these abilities impede the learning process or if they can be attributed to 21st century skills, which might be even more important than traditional learning goals.

The current world of open resources which are available to almost anyone in an increasing pace, including scientific publications, poses an interesting challenge for institutions of higher education. In the Netherlands for instance, all scientific articles funded by public money will have to be published on an open access platform from 2024 onwards (Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap, 2015). Developments like these will be essential in the prosperity of education in an increasingly technological world (Ondercin, 2010).

2.2.5 Analysis of the potential benefits

From the literature presented in the four points of this chapter, it seems clear that there are a lot of reasons for students to participate in informal online student communities. A more social

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way of learning has become the standard for most students in modern universities, through which they can learn from one another, communicate more often and more quickly, collaborate, and share. While Facebook might also serve well as an alternative ‘Learning Management System’, there are also cons to this practice, mainly regarding user friendliness and privacy. As Facebook as an LMS also is formal rather than informal in nature, it is not the main interest of this thesis.

Quantitatively, multiple papers have identified that the main interactions between students consist of communication, collaboration and resource and materials sharing (Mazman & Usluel, 2010; Sánchez et al., 2014). Qualitatively, less research has been done. The next part of the literature review will focus more deeply on interactions between students, specifically on the Facebook platform. For informal cases, there is far less research done than for formal educational usage situations of Facebook. Because of this, the upcoming part will dive deeper into two seminal papers, which together constitute all research found explicitly revolving around informal academic usage of Facebook.

2.3 Interactions within the informal online student community

For this second part of the literature review, two articles which have researched informal educational usage of Facebook by students will be analyzed in-depth in order to establish a working frame for the data and methods which will be analyzed in a later part of the thesis. The first article was written by Selwyn (2009), and has been cited by almost all authors of this thesis’ references. The second article is by Vivian et al. (2014), and followed students and their

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2.3.1 Selwyn: Exploring students’ education-related use of Facebook

Selwyn’s (2009) study features a qualitative investigation of Facebook use by students who were enrolled in either a BA or BSc program in Social Sciences. These students’ public postings on their own ‘wall’ or that of others, were analyzed and classified as belonging to one of five main themes of interaction. Reflecting on the university experience, exchanging practical information, exchanging academic information, displaying disengagement and ‘banter’ are the five categories of Selwyn (2009). Most categories, including the exchange of practical information, are of a more social nature, while only the exchange of academic information is more educationally grounded. Selwyn (2009) recognizes that most Facebook usage revolves around support and venting about their experiences. The exchange of academic information does occur however, with talks about examinations, essays, and intellectual discussions on a wide array of topics taking place, albeit far less frequently than interactions of the other categories (Selwyn, 2009). Observations showed that students did relay inaccurate and incorrect information, which confirms the vision of Boud et al. (2001) that the need for reflection and judgment of accuracy of information is very important.

It is important to emphasize the public nature of the postings by the students, which means that anyone, including strangers, was able to read their contributions to Facebook. There are no mentions of the existence of private groups in the article. Emphasis is put on the fact that these interactions likely are mere extensions of offline social interactions between students and Facebook should thus be seen as important for students in their way of fitting in. Selwyn (2009) notes that a lot of the postings by students can be seen as identity-shaping rather than actually contributing to acquirement of knowledge. In this sense, it was not surprising that the more mature students (in the age group of 18-25) were absent from most discussions (Selwyn, 2009).

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Even though the article clearly found a large amount of evidence concerning the acculturation of students and their tendencies to build or maintain images of themselves amongst their peers, it lacks an insight in how students interact in order to solve their academic problems together. Apparently, in 2009, the network was not often used for strictly academic purposes. Also, Selwyn (2009) found no differences in Facebook activity between different age groups, gender or academic performance of individual students.

2.3.2 Vivian et al.: Academic journey of students on Facebook

While a lot of research has been done on formal Facebook use in higher education between 2009 and 2014, Vivian et al. (2014) indicates that there still is little research done on in-depth investigations of informal learning on social media. Consequently, this paper expands upon the qualitative interactions amongst students on Facebook. In the research, university students were invited to fill out a survey, after which they were able to voluntarily participate in the second part of the research, which involved the tracking of personal Facebook use. As in the research by Selwyn (2009), the tracking of student Facebook activity was limited to public information, which include status updates and ‘wall’ posts on an individual’s own wall or that of others. Additionally, students had the possibility to inform the researcher about private activity like instant messaging and private Facebook group activity. This, however, was a one-way interaction as the researcher did not want to interfere with the research subjects unless they established contact themselves (Vivian et al., 2014).

The researchers investigated three parts of informal Facebook use, namely the frequency of Facebook use by students, the frequency of Facebook use over a university study period and the types of academic topics which students discussed (Vivian et al., 2014). Interestingly, most academic use of Facebook was found to have no response, or only a few comments. However, one post was found in which students discussed about an assignment, which generated more

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than 300 responses (Vivian et al., 2014). In the investigation of Facebook usage frequency over the course of an academic period, clear results showed that there was a spike in activity near the end of the study period. This coincides with the end-of-term exams and possible deadlines. The research of Vivian et al. (2014) clearly shows different subjects which are more or less important over the course of a period. This ranges from discussions about grades and holidays between periods to more content-related discussions or talks about procrastination and the support of peers (Vivian et al., 2014). Finally, the researchers claim that there are more possibilities for ‘Social Networking Sites’, such as making groups. While they note that universities’ involvement might be detrimental due to privacy issues, they indicate that the university is able to play a role in bringing students together on Facebook (Vivian et al., 2014).

2.3.3 A deeper understanding of student interactions on Facebook

While both articles presented in the two previous headings have created much insight on the educational use of Facebook by students, there is an enormous part of Facebook which has not been investigated yet. As privacy has become more and more of an issue in recent years, a large part of what happens on Facebook is not visible for non-friends. Another part is only visible for specific user-interest communities called Facebook groups. As students often create these groups for their courses or entire class, most academic interactions are set in these private groups. This thesis is most interested in the different dynamics of these groups, mainly on how students interact concerning purely academic content and if these interactions differ for various study subjects or courses. This has led to the following research question:

“How do students interact in informal online student communities on Facebook, and how do

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3. Data and Method

3.1 Data collection

In order to be able to answer the research question, a dataset needed to be obtained. This proved rather easy as this thesis is part of the curriculum of the MSc program in Business Administration offered by the University of Amsterdam. Within this program there are multiple tracks, of which the author of this thesis is enrolled in the Digital Business track. For this track, a Facebook group has existed since the start of the academic year, and it has 189 members. No teachers or faculty are a member of the group, but there are some students from different tracks, mainly because they belong to overarching organizations who promote internships and job opportunities or because they followed an elective course from the Digital Business track.

The actual extraction of Facebook private group data did not prove to be as easy as hoped beforehand. The NCapture software, which serves as an NVivo extension for web browsers, provides the ability to extract complete datasets from Facebook groups. Unfortunately, Facebook does not allow data extraction from private groups anymore due to privacy concerns. As a result, the private Facebook group would have to be made public, even if only for a short time, which required group administration rights. Getting these rights was easy due to cooperation from a peer. However, in order to make the group public and actually extracting data, group members had to be notified of the process and given time to protest.

3.1.1 Ethics and privacy

Before group data was extracted from Facebook, the author posted a message on the group ‘wall’ explaining upon the thesis goal and the short change in accessibility of the group by outsiders:

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“Hi everyone. For my thesis, I'm researching the ways in which students collaborate and communicate in informal online groups such as this one. In order to get my dataset, which I

will analyze in NVivo, I need to make our group public for a few minutes in order to be able

to download the data, as Facebook doesn't allow this for private groups. Of course,

everything I do will be anonymized and none of your words / contributions will be

investigated in specifics. Unless multiple people aren't okay with this, I plan on doing this on

May 9th at 12:00 noon. If you have any questions just ask!”

The message was seen by 76 of 189 members before noon on May 9th and no students had commented on it. Two people however did ‘like’ the message, so it was actually read by members of the group. Data extraction could then proceed as the group was made public for a short time of a couple minutes.

3.1.2 The dataset

This resulted in an enormous dataset consisting of 1522 entries, which was converted to a Microsoft Excel file for detailed analysis. An entry is either an original post, meaning that a student started a discussion by posting on the ‘wall’ of the group, or a comment on such a post. All entries offered a lot of characteristics, which are listed in table 1 below:

Table 1. Properties of each entry from the extracted dataset

Post ID Type Gender

Posted By Username Likes Birthday

Post Created Time Location

Tagged Updated Time Relationship Status

Picture Comment ID Bio

Link Commenter Username Religion

Link Name Comment Text Hometown

Link Caption In Reply To ID Page Category Link Description Comment Likes Page Likes

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It should be noted that from the properties listed in table 1, only the two left columns were actually filled with data. This is probably due to Facebook privacy settings, and fortunately, these characteristics are not of interest to the research question.

3.2 Method

Because of the extremely large data set, consisting of 1522 rows and 20 columns (for a total of 30,440 fields), structuring was necessary before any statements could be made. As initial NVivo analysis was not very user-friendly the decision was made to analyze the data through Microsoft Excel. Of the 1522 entries, there were 296 posts and 1226 comments. Posts were split from comments, and were considered the main data to dissect.

All posts were put in a separate Excel tab, as was also done for all comments. For both, an analysis was made on what part of the contributions originated from which students. This resulted in an overview of the individual students and how large their contribution to the community was. From this data, the characteristics of the community could also be more easily distinguished.

As the research question focuses on how student interactions differ between various courses with their respective requirements and structure, the data needed to be structured in a way which reflected this distinction as well. This requires some insight in the Digital Business track curriculum. First off, the academic calendar of the University of Amsterdam is structured in 2 semesters, both consisting of 3 periods. The first and second period both are 8 weeks long, while the last period of each semester is only 4 weeks in duration. In the first period, students of the Business Administration MSc program have to take two courses, one belonging to the Digital Business track (Theories of Digital Business), and one belonging to another track of choice. This explains why there are students in the Facebook group who are not enrolled in the Digital Business track. In period 2, two courses are mandatory, which are ‘Digital Business

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Innovation’ and ‘Digital Marketing & Analytics’. Period 3 consist of a 4-week course in writing the ‘Thesis Proposal’.

In the second semester, students have to take two elective courses from a list of about twenty possible courses. As the electives featured a lot of students from other tracks as well, these courses had their own Facebook pages or groups. Also in the second semester, students have to write their thesis and follow two small courses which enable them to write a good thesis, for instance through ‘Qualitative Data Analysis’. The ‘Thesis Proposal’, the thesis itself and the two small thesis courses were all grouped under the theme ‘Thesis’.

This curriculum structure had to be applied to the original data in order to get results and develop an understanding towards answering the research question. For this, a division between six themes / courses was made, for which a color coding was applied to posts in the Excel file. The courses are classified as either theoretical or analytical. Theoretical implies that the bulk of the course consisted of reading scientific articles and being able to apply the knowledge presented. Analytical courses focus more on structural insight and the ability to logically construct models or solve mathematical problems. A further insight to these themes and courses now follows.

3.2.1 Theories of Digital Business

The first course of the academic year required students to do a team assignment as well as take a final exam on the course content provided in lectures and the course book. This book consisted of 18 chapters of which 17 had to be read. Next to that, 8 scientific articles had to be read and additional 2 articles were indicated as optional reading. This made up for an enormous amount of text to be read. The course was thus classified as a theoretical course.

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3.2.2 Digital Business Innovation

In the second period, Digital Business Innovation was one of the mandatory courses offered. For this course, team presentations as well as a final exam made up for the graded elements of the course. The exam was divided in two parts, with the first part consisting of multiple choice questions on lectures given and 8 required articles. The second part of the exams featured the modeling of Dataflow Diagrams, Event Process Chains and Entity Relationship Diagrams. Because of these two sides of the course, it is considered both theoretical and analytical. This means that for each post, the nature of the discussion is ascertained in the dataset.

3.2.3 Digital Marketing & Analytics

Also in the second period, the Digital Marketing & Analytics course was a mandatory part of the curriculum. The analytical part was made up of team presentations while the theoretical part was individual in its nature. The exam required only theoretical knowledge from students. A note should be made that in this course, all mandatory articles which were featured in the exam, were summarized and presented in class by teams made up of students. As the analytical part was done in separate teams outside of the Facebook group, this course is considered as

theoretical.

3.2.4 Thesis

The combination of courses which were attributed to the ‘Thesis’ theme were basic in the way that these are very individual courses. Student Facebook posts on this subject were limited to practical matters and the asking for help from peers in filling out surveys. Because of this, the ‘Thesis’ theme is not identified as either theoretical or analytical.

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3.2.5 Social / General Study Related

The final two themes are grouped together here as they are not influential in answering the research question. In the dataset, they however are distinguished as separate entities which could serve as data for future research.

3.3 Further analysis

After all posts were color coded and put in separate tabs belonging to their respective theme or course, comments belonging to certain posts could be filtered and pasted underneath the post they were associated with. Posts were first filtered on number of likes in order to get a feel of the activity a post might have. When all themes and courses were completely sorted and posts were linked to their comments, the actual qualitative analysis of the content could begin. This is presented in the next section.

4. Results

4.1 The community

Out of the 189 members of the community, 155 (82.0%) made at least one contribution, which can be either a post or comment. In total, 296 posts were made for an average of 1.57 posts per student. 107 students (56.6%) made at least one post, indicating they used the platform to reach out to their fellow students. In figure 1 an overview can be found on the number of posts created (x-axis) versus the percentage of students which made that exact number of posts (y-axis). Percentage wise, the number of students which made 1 post or less (68.8%) are part of a large periphery of the community. Furthermore, a continuum can be observed from students who made 2 posts or less (79.9%), 3 posts or less (86.2%), 4 posts or less (89.4%) and so on. The

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percentage of students who made 6 posts or more accounts for 5.29%, or 10 individual students, and can be identified as the core of the community concerning number of posts made.

Figure 1. Number of posts made by percentage of students.

When looking at the number of comments made on these posts, 1226 comments were placed, for an average of 6.49 comments per student. 132 students (69.8%) made at least one comment. Coincidentally, that same number of students (132, 69.8%) made at most 5 comments throughout the academic year, indicating their relative passivity in the community. 31 students (16.4%) commented 6 to 10 times, 15 students (7.9%) did so 11 to 15 times and 8 students (4.2%) made 16 to 20 comments. There were 11 students (5.8%) who commented between 21 and 40 times after which two outliers were found. These last two individuals were responsible for 52 and 116 comments, respectively. Again, it is difficult to indicate a clear distinction between the periphery and core of the community, but it can be confidently said that a periphery exists which contains at least two-thirds of the total number of members. The distribution of comments made by % of students can be found in figure 2.

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26 Figure 2. Comments made by percentage of students

Posts and comments combined, 155 students (82.0%) made at least one contribution to the

community. In figure 3, the total user activity can be found, consisting of both posts and

comments. Each vertical line on the x-axis represents an individual student. It should be noted

that one outlier was excluded as this individual made 128 total contributions. This individual case will be explained upon in a later section. Also, the non-contributing students were taken out of figure 3 in order to get a clearer overview of user activity.

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4.2 The interactions

Of the 296 posts, a first distinction resulted in two kinds of posts, namely posts in which events or opportunities like jobs or internship openings were relayed across the community, or, posts which were of a more responsive nature, relating to the six themes as mentioned in the methods: the three courses, the thesis, general study related messages and social communication. 86 of the 296 posts (29.1%) were related to events and opportunities. The events and opportunities were left out of the research as it would not help answer the research question. 210 of 296 posts (70,9%) related to the themes of this thesis. Of these 210 posts, 55 (26.2%) concerned the ‘Theories of Digital Business’ course, 19 (9.0%) were related to ‘Digital Business Innovation’, 14 (6.7%) to ‘Digital Marketing and Analysis’, 59 (28.1%) to the ‘Thesis’, 41 (19.5%) were ‘General Study Related’ and 22 (10.5%) were ‘Social’. These results can be found in table 2. In the following sections, the interactions within the realm of the three courses is spread out, investigating types of interactions as well as overall patterns.

Theories of Digital Business 26.2% Digital Business Innovation 9.0% Digital Marketing & Analysis 6.7%

Thesis 28.1%

General Study Related 19.5%

Social 10.5%

Table 2. Percentage of posts related to categories.

4.2.1 Theories of Digital Business

The first course of the academic year was also the most heavily discussed within the student community. There were 55 posts which had to do with the course.

First of all, posts were sorted by number of likes as this would possibly indicate post activity. This turned out to not be the case when comments were combined to the posts however, as

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posts with the most likes all had altruistic content (as in students sharing resources which

stemmed fully from their own effort with the entire group). Some examples are featured now:

Student 1 posted: “In addition to the summary created with the collective intelligence of the

students of the program, I would also like to share the summary I created. This one is a lot

shorter (30 pages), but focuses on all the topics that I think (based on the remarks of Hans)

deserve attention for the exam (including frameworks and figures). Good luck studying!”

This post had 62 likes, and four comments, one of which was:

Student 2 commented: “<3! the true open source spirit”

Another example:

Student 3 posted: “Hi all, I created a file with all relevant slides, may be useful for you. :)

Good luck with the exam!”

This post had 54 likes, and two comments. There were more similar posts, all of whom had a large amount of likes but little comments. The comments that were made were all of appreciative nature.

Just below the most-liked and ‘altruistic’ posts, one post stood out from the rest, which had only 12 likes, but an astonishing 290 comments. It was written by student 4, who asked:

“Anyone in for a collective summary of the book? 21 people are needed to have everyone do a comparable portion, it is very doable.”

As the methods part of this course explained, one part of the course was the reading of a rather large book on the course material. Student 4 took it upon himself to start up a community collaboration effort of summarizing the book. As can be read from the post, a total of 21 people was required to fill all available slots. Within two hours of the original posting, 20 people had

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commented expressing their intent to join the collaboration effort. Including the original poster, this made 21. A ‘Dropbox’ was made where all chapters could be uploaded by the students assigned to them. As other students asked to be included as well, the original poster commented:

Student 4 commented: “Others can also join as there are also summaries to be made of the

articles of course”

This sparked interest, resulting in 15 more students applying to the group. Multiple students did not get in however, after which the following comment was placed:

Student 4 commented: “Maybe you guys can make really good lecture notes and join (y)”

While another 20 students expressed their interest in participating, the next comments were:

Student 4 commented: “It's really just full now, I can't think of anything else to do. If you come

up with something cool to do you can get in. I think it would also be nice to just share the full

summary in the last week before the exams with everyone.”

Student 5 commented: “Student 4 that would be very noble of you, big bummer I’m reading

your post now and not earlier so I could join. Very good initiative though!”

Student 4 commented: “For everyone commenting after I said it was full: I honestly have no

idea what can be done as we have 3 people taking lecture notes and every part of the book and

every obligatory article is covered. Perhaps you can make double summaries of the articles or

something?”

A very large number of students still requested to be a part of the initiative afterwards, indicating the huge willingness to participate in a collaborative effort in making a community summary of the required reading material. Interestingly, the original poster indicated that it was

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his/her intention to share the full summary with the entire group, regardless of participation efforts. This led to the following post near the end of the course:

Student 4 posted: “Dear all, as promised, herewith the summary! If you find anything that is

not right, please contact the person in charge of that summary directly. The division of the

summaries is in the main map, you can find the person in charge in that document. So, let's do

this! Everyone good luck with studying and the exam.”

All this shows that a major part of the group activity was related to this collaboration effort. In total, 17 of 55 posts (30.9%) revolved around ‘Collaboration / Sharing Resources’. Another very active post in this perspective was:

Student 6 posted: “Hi guys! I have all the recordings about Digital Business, if you need them,

feel free to contact me! Have a nice weekend!”

While the University of Amsterdam offers recorded lectures to students in some courses, this was not the case for the ‘Theories of Digital Business’ course. It’s thus interesting to see that students took it upon themselves to make these (audio)recordings.

15 of 55 posts (27.3%) were made by students finding team members for the group assignment. 9 of 55 posts (16.4%) were practical questions like the following:

Student 7 posted: “Hi, since I am struggling very much with the word count, I was wondering

if anyone knows if there's a 10% margin on the word count or that it should be 3000-3500 and

not less/more.”

Of the remaining posts, 6 (10.9%) were content-related like the following:

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Further, 5 posts (9.1%) were on checking peer progress and 3 posts (5.5%) concerned the aftermath of the final exam. An overview of these results can be found in table 3, categories were inspired by the research of Vivian et al. (2014).

Collaboration / Sharing Resources 30.9%

Finding Team Members 27.3%

Practical Questions 16.4%

Content 10.9%

Checking peer progress 9.1%

Post-exam discussions 5.5%

Table 3. Post categories within ‘Theories of Digital Business’.

4.2.2 Digital Business Innovation

In analyzing the 19 posts on ‘Digital Business Innovation’ made by students some recurring characteristics were found. Of the four posts which had a substantial number of likes, ranging from 24 to 57 likes, two posts featured the sharing of resources in an altruistic way. Again, these posts had little to no comments. A new finding was that the other two most-liked posts contained post-exam ‘banter’ which featured a course content-linked joke. One of these posts:

Student 3 posted: “no more foreign keys in ERD! #dbi” with an added image, figure 4:

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Interestingly, there were no collaboration efforts between students. This could be the result of a lesser course load in reading articles or books. An overview of the themes of posts can be found in table 4.

Collaboration / Sharing Resources 15.8%

Finding Team Members 5.3%

Practical Questions 15.8%

Content 36.8%

Checking peer progress 15.8%

Post-exam discussions 10.5%

Table 4. Post themes for ‘Digital Business Innovation’.

Compared to the ‘Theories of Digital Business’ course, a spike in ‘Content’ discussions is observed as well as a drop in ‘Collaboration / Sharing Resources’ posts. These ‘Content’ discussions featured both parts of the course as structured (50% theoretical, 50% analytical modeling). One post of both sections will be featured next. Other posts in the ‘Content’ category were of similar nature:

Student 9 posted: “Anyone wants to compare the MC questions? I did the ones that are related

to our topics. March 2014: 1a,2c,3c,13a,14c?16c; March 2012: 1c,2c,3a,4a,15b,16A,

17C,18A,20b,21b? or a? June 2009,1b,2c,3c,10b,11a?13c; 8 March 2016,1b,2b?3a,12a.

This post got 53 comments and 2 likes. It sparked an in-depth content discussion amongst students, as similar posts did as well. The discussion of old exams was facilitated by students who shared these exams in the group ‘Dropbox’, after they bought the exams through sites which sell these (in this case StudeerSnel.nl). Some comments:

Student 3 commented: “hi, in 2014 Q3 C is correct, I think, because processes do take time

(sometimes hours) and events do not. can you please explain me why 2014 Q16 is C? I would

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Student 10 commented: “Sorry! I misread that question, so C is right: EPCs are typically used

for business process redesign, but can also be used for more or less far-reaching redesign

efforts.”

Student 9 commented: “relationships do have attribute because they are considered as entities

(see slides). I also send Hans an email and replied: Dear student 9, You are right […] Kind

regards"

This indicates that the Facebook group is a platform for in-depth content discussions as well as a platform to share resources and set up collaborative efforts, which was not yet clearly seen in the ‘Theories of Digital Business’ course. Noticeably, student ‘9’ also shares the e-mail conversation with the course professor in the process of getting to the correct answer. For the analytical part of the course, an example follows next:

“Student 11 posted: “Hi guys! Someone feeling confident on their ERD skills and wants to

share their solution to this question?” (featured a picture of the extensive question)

67 comments followed this post. As this part consisted of constructing a complicated model based on a provided large descriptive text, students commented with pictures of their models as well as large pieces of text which served as arguments for their solutions. One student placed the following comment, an impression of which can be found in figure 5:

Student 12 commented: “So, this is what we got..”

In total, this comment received another 24 comments, with students sharing their own versions and solutions, trying to reach a shared solution.

The posts in the categories ‘Finding Team Members’, ‘Practical Questions’ and ‘Checking peer progress’ did not produce any new or interesting findings.

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34 Figure 5. Impression of student comment regarding the modeling of an ‘ERD’.

4.2.3 Digital Marketing & Analytics

In the ‘Digital Marketing & Analytics’ course category there were only 11 posts made by the students within the group. Within the course, students were required to make article summaries through team efforts, and had to present them in class as well. This resulted in the fact that there was no real ‘collaboration effort’, but students rather shared the articles they summarized through the group ‘Dropbox’. Other posts concerned practical questions which did not produce any new findings compared to previously analyzed courses. The only available practice content provided a detailed answering model as well, probably diminishing the need of students to discuss content. Posts per category can be found in table 5.

Collaboration / Sharing Resources 45.5%

Finding Team Members 0%

Practical Questions 54.5%

Content 0%

Checking peer progress 0%

Post-exam discussions 0%

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4.2.4 Thesis

Within the ‘Thesis’ category, which was compiled out of multiple small preparatory courses and the thesis itself, there also is a very clear division of post categories. Of the 59 total posts, almost two-thirds were requests from students if other group members could fill in their surveys. These were sometimes accompanied by incentives like in the following example:

Student 13 posted: “Dear all, Help needed! ***Don't miss the chance of winning one of the

two bol.com gift cards valued at 20 euros each*** Please help me by filling out this survey. I

promise it will take between 5 to 6 minutes. Thank you in advance for your support

These requests usually resulted in 5 to 10 comments of students saying they had filled in the survey, while often asking the original poster to fill in their survey as well, creating a tit-for-tat network. Almost all other posts concerned practical questions which did not result in new insights. An overview of posts per category can be found in table 6.

Collaboration / Sharing Resources 1.7%

Finding Team Members 0%

Practical Questions 32.2%

Content 0%

Checking peer progress 1.7%

Post-exam discussions 0%

Survey Requests 64.4%

Table 6. Posts per category in the ‘Thesis’ theme.

All findings from the respective posts and comments will be discussed in the following section in order to answer the original research question.

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5. Discussion

This research has tried to establish a view on informal online student communities from a researcher-as-insider perspective, which has allowed for an unbiased dataset where it concerns private Facebook groups unaffected by influences from the educational institutions its members are enrolled in. As this research is unprecedented in its methods, a first insight has been presented towards the academia-related interactions of students within their informal online community. From this phenomenon, a research question was derived which showed interest in the various interactions students had and in what way course requirements and structure influenced these interactions.

From the results, it has been shown that the students formed an active community in which they worked together extensively in order to achieve their academic goals. Even though there was no official teaching presence in the group, examples were shown in which students did reach out to the professor of the course in order to make sure the answer was correct. This indicates that, at least for this group, the level of discussion and reflection was rather high and did not lead to a detrimental process in terms of mastering the content. As Boud et al. (2001) indicated that the need for reflection and judgment of accuracy of information is very important in any learning process, the students of this group seem to have high standards regarding these requirements. While Selwyn (2009) showed that students shared inaccurate and incorrect information, this was not explicitly found in this research. An explanation for this could be the studying level, as this research investigated an MSc program, while Selwyn (2009) focused on BSc and BA students.

For overall community characteristics, it was notable that 82% of group members made at least one contribution. As practically all students enrolled in the ‘Digital Business’ track were in the group, this indicates that for a large majority of students, Facebook has become an important

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aspect in their educational lives. As Dabbagh & Kitsantas (2012) stated that the use of social media in learning is highly self-motivated, it can be said that, in this group, motivation is very high. On actual interactions, Maleko et al. (2013) identified the ability to express dissatisfaction as important to students’ opinions on Facebook groups, and Selwyn (2009) also recognized that a large part of Facebook usage revolved around students venting about their experiences. Interestingly, this research found very little student contributions which expressed dissatisfaction or contained venting about experiences, even in the ‘social’ theme which was left out of the results (as it is not of interest to the research question). As Bouhnik & Marcus (2006) stated, students are mindful of what they write, even in a community which is private and consists of only peers. Obviously, the findings of Selwyn (2009) contradict the statement of Bouhnik & Marcus (2006), as well as the findings of this thesis. One explanation for this could be that the better students know each other, the more they interact about the negative experiences they have. As for this, and probably most MSc programs, students have various backgrounds; from different BSc programs; different cities and countries; a larger age distribution; etcetera. Very little students have known each other for a longer time period. Interestingly, the older students within the 18 to 25 age group in Selwyn (2009) were absent from most discussions revolving around ‘venting on experiences’, which could indicate different psychological needs for different age groups in Facebook use.

While in Vivian et al. (2014) most academic interactions found little response, the content of this thesis’ dataset contained a huge amount of purely academic interactions between students. This might be due to the fact that results of Vivian et al. (2014) were obtained from public postings by students whereas this research accessed a dataset from a private group, indicating that most of these interactions take place ‘backstage’. Some very clear results were found, as students showed an enormous interest to participate in a collaboration effort for ‘Theories of Digital Business’. Because of the high course load, which included a textbook of around twenty

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chapters and multiple scientific articles indicated as required reading material, it is possible that students resorted to this ‘mass summary-making’ for time management. Misra & McKean (2000) already showed that effective time management is a greater predictor of academic stress in students than leisure activities, indicating that these collaboration efforts may help students in reducing stress.

Another insight derived from the collaboration effort is that a ‘group within a group’ was created in which students only were allowed access to the group ‘Dropbox’, in which the files were stored, when they had contributed to the community effort. However, the end-product was distributed amongst all group members one week before the exam. This could be considered as counterintuitive as the free-rider mentality is something which greatly impacts students’ behaviors towards official group work in universities in a negative way (Pfaff & Huddleston, 2003). However, from this research it was shown that students also value the “open source mentality”, as commented by one of the students in the results section. This altruistic spirit was a recurring theme within the group, both from student collaboration efforts as from individual students sharing their own work. These altruistic posts were also the most-liked in every course. According to Bergquist and Ljungberg (2001), sharing or ‘gift giving’ as they call it, in an open source community, is a way of establishing and maintaining relationships between individuals based on reputation. While this could not be tested as this would require insights from students themselves, it is an interesting idea.

Besides the collaboration efforts, the most interesting interactions revolved around the discussion of course content, mainly facilitated by the existence of practice questions for the exam. These interactions where seen for both theoretical and analytical problems or questions. Most notable was that there were a lot of content discussions within the course of ‘Digital Business Innovation’, while this was far less the case in the other courses. This is most likely the result of more practice questions being uploaded by one of the students, who paid for these

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