Face-to-face or Facebook?

The Leicester project also draws on internationally recognised expertise by this specific team of researchers in online research methodologies. As Clare Madge of the Department of Geography at the University of Leicester stated: “This project will be using both an online questionnaire and virtual interviews, and will innovate in the use of Facebook itself as a site to conduct virtual interviews”.

What Dr Wellens and her colleagues hope to establish from the new research project is how Leicester students are using Facebook as part of their social and learning experience and whether joining the University’s Facebook network before they come to Leicester helps students to settle down more easily to university life.

They will also be looking to see if there is any way that university support services and academic departments can use the online social networking sites to help students integrate into university life, and how the sites might be re-shaping our everyday lives in terms of the importance of place-based versus virtual networking.

Research results are expected to influence university policies at Leicester and beyond. “It may affect the way the University uses its Facebook network,” said Dr Wellens. “One outcome might be that the University would use these sites to bring new students together before their arrival, or to bring together current and new students to provide peer support. It will also ascertain students’ views about the ways in which the University and its staff should, or shouldn’t, use Facebook for academic purposes.”

The project has received funding from the Teaching Enhancement Forum and the Registrar at the University of Leicester.

Notes to Editors: Some information follows. More details are available from Dr Jane Wellens, Educational Developer, Staff Development Centre, University of Leicester, tel 0116 252 3846 / 5021, email .

University of Leicester Facebook Project:

The project is being undertaken by the interdisciplinary team of Dr Jane Wellens, Staff Development, Dr Clare Madge, Geography, Dr Tristram Hooley, CRAC and Dr Julia Meek, an independent evaluation consultant, who have internationally recognised expertise in Online Research Methods.

They have previously used such methods to research the support role of online communities (Madge and O’Connor, 2004; 2006), students’ university experiences (Wellens, 2004) and the ethics associated with online research (Madge, 2007).

The team has been awarded two ESRC grants and individual University Teaching Fellowships for their work in this area.

Further information is available on https://swww2.le.ac.uk/departments/geography/projects/tri-orm/facebook