Introduction

The prevalence of social media and its uses for educational purposes have been emerging in the past decade. Social media, also called “social networking sites” (SNSs) and “Web 2.0”, is defined as “technologies that emphasize the social aspects of the internet as a channel for social interaction and collaboration” [1]. It allows users to engage and share content generated by other users in a digital environment. A survey from the Pew Research Centre [2] found that 72% of American adults used at least one type of social media in 2019, among which 90% of users were aged between 18 and 29.

The popularity of social media has produced a range of initiatives for exploring its potential for educational purposes. For example, Skype was used by some institutions to allow students to interact with experts in relevant disciplines as a learning activity, and WordPress was adopted for students to develop their e-portfolios for assessment [3]. These attempts have demonstrated the advantages of social media for active and informal learning by strengthening students’ interaction and engagement inside and outside the classroom [4]. On the other hand, the challenges of effective adoption of social media have also been identified, such as the difficulty in striking a balance between its informal and academic use, as well as in adapting existing pedagogies to cope with the features of SNSs [5]. How to tackle the challenges has become an important issue to address to fully realise the educational potential of social media.

Despite the many studies which have examined the effective use and limitations of social media for educational purposes, their findings have yet to be comprehensively reviewed and summarised. Relevant reviews have only provided an overview of the developments [6, 7], or focused on a specific discipline [8] or SNS [9].

This paper aims to review the studies on the use of social media in higher education institutions, and identify the opportunities and challenges reported in the studies. It summarises the use of social media by the institutions, the opportunities for improving educational practices, and the challenges encountered by the institutions, staff or learners. On this basis, a number of recommendations are proposed on the effective use of social media.

Related Work

The increasing significance of social media has led to a proliferation of related studies on its educational potential, many of which have focused on the use of social media in learning and teaching. For example, Balakrishnan and Gan [10] analysed students’ use of social media for learning in relation to their learning styles, and identified the factors which affect its use. Also, Manca and Ranieri [11] examined academics’ use of social media to find out their patterns in terms of personal, teaching and professional purposes.

The results of these studies have revealed the opportunities which social media presents for advancing educational practices. These include the improvement in students’ learning engagement in relation to their use of social media as supplementary tools during instruction [12]. Gikas and Grant [13] also found that the use of social media facilitated collaboration and interaction, and students were more engaged in content creation.

A number of challenges have also been reported in the literature. The survey findings of Brooks and Pomerantz [14] showed that nearly half of the respondents preferred instructors to use less social media as a learning tool. Ajjan and Hartshorne [15] found low adoption of Web 2.0 technologies among faculty members for learning and teaching, despite their overall positive attitude towards it, due to the problems of low perceived usefulness, compatibility with current practice, and lack of experience. Moran, Seaman and Tinti-Kane [16] pointed out that the issue of low adoption is also affected by factors such as staff’s seniority and subject discipline, with younger faculty staff being more likely to use social media during instruction, and the usage level of social media in Art and Humanities, Applied Sciences and Social Sciences being generally higher than in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Natural Sciences.

Despite the wide range of opportunities and challenges presented in studies, the existing reviews have been weak in providing a comprehensive overview of them. Many of the review have focused only on the use of social media in specific disciplines, such as healthcare education [8, 17] and medical education [18]. Also, some reviews have covered only particular SNSs, such as Twitter [8] and Facebook [9]. In addition, there are reviews which have only summarised relevant studies [7, 19], or provided a general narrative on the use of social media in higher education [6, 20]. This paper aims to supplement the existing reviews in this area and address their limitations.

Methodology

This study aims to survey how higher education institutions apply social media in educational practices and the opportunities and challenges reflected in their experience. The survey method was based on the review studies of Li and Wong [21] and Wong and Li [22]. Relevant case studies were collected from the publication databases Scopus and Google Scholar, using the key terms “social media” and “higher education”. The period of publications is 2010–2019. Only journal articles were selected. An initial search returned a total of 670 results, which were then screened according to the following inclusion criteria:

  1. (a)

    The article reports an empirical study on the use of social media in a higher education institution.

  2. (b)

    The study contains the details of the use of social media, such as the purpose, implementation, evaluation, and outcomes.

Finally, a total of 77 case studies were selected. Each of them was checked to identify and categorise the social media use and the related opportunities and challenges presented in the studies.

Results

Use of Social Media by Institutions

As a Learning Management System (LMS)

Social media was used by some institutions like a conventional LMS, such as Moodle or Blackboard, as a supplement to the traditional classroom setting. Table 1 shows examples of case studies on this social media use, which helped to enhance the involvement of students outside the class [26]. Social media serves as a platform to display course announcements, manage course materials, and collect assignments [27]. This also addressed the problem of a conventional LMS which was used by some students only in the campus due to a negative attitude toward it [28]. The community building and sharing functions of SNSs provide an alternative to instructors, allowing them to use SNSs as an LMS platform.

Table 1 Examples of institutions which used social media as an LMS
Full size table

Enhancement of Student Engagement

Table 2 provides examples of the use of social media by institutions to enhance student engagement. Student engagement refers to the time and effort devoted by students in learning activities assigned by teachers or self-directed by students on social media [33]. Relevant activities may include in-class discussion, interaction with faculty staff and among peers, and group work. Social media offers a new space for communication and collaboration, which allows students to participate in both formal and informal learning contexts and enhances their learning experience.

Table 2 Examples of institutions which used social media to enhance student engagement
Full size table

Opportunities

Higher Popularity as an LMS

Table 3 presents examples of studies showing the high popularity of social media among students. Compared with a traditional LMS, social media such as Facebook or Ning was shown to have attracted students to visit more frequently, which can be measured by, for example, the numbers of posts, comments, views, and “likes” on the SNSs. Because of their popularity among students, they are useful for disseminating course information and materials to students and engaging them in learning activities.

Table 3 Examples on high popularity of social media as LMS
Full size table

Improvement of Student Participation

Table 4 shows examples of study results on improving student participation in learning activities via the use of social media. Students were generally more active in participating in online discussion, asking questions, joining activities, and reading others’ posts on social media. They reflected that the social media environment made them more comfortable in expressing themselves and commenting on others’ work or ideas.

Table 4 Examples on improvement of student engagement
Full size table

Enabling Two-Way Communication

Table 5 lists the examples of studies demonstrating the influences of social media on two-way communication. The results of the relevant studies have shown that social media provides opportunities for enabling real-time communication. Students expressed their preference for communicating and discussing course-related issues with fellow students, and instructors could provide individualised mentorship to students via this channel.

Table 5 Examples of two-way communication
Full size table

Knowledge Sharing

Table 6 presents the case studies on knowledge sharing with social media. A number of studies have shown social media to be an effective platform for requesting and sharing subject-related materials. The ease of use and immediate communication of SNSs are two main factors promoting sharing among users.

Table 6 Examples on knowledge sharing
Full size table

Community Building

Table 7 summarises a number of examples on community practices in learning induced by social media. By enhancing the communication among social media users, a community could be created to foster the relationship among them, and promote communities of inquiry and practice.

Table 7 Examples on community building
Full size table

Collaborative Learning

Table 8 exemplifies the implication of social media use for collaborative learning. Through social media (e.g. blogs and wiki), students are supported to interact with their peers on problem-solving, and co-construct and share knowledge, which foster their collaborative learning.

Table 8 Examples on collaborative learning
Full size table

Enhancement of Learning Experience

Table 9 summarises a number of examples which revealed the effectiveness of social media in enhancing learning experience. By increasing their engagement in both formal and informal learning through the use of social media, students can pay more attention to the class and be eager to discuss course-related contents after class. This results in their greater understanding of the concepts which may benefit their learning experiences.

Table 9 Examples on enhancement of learning experience
Full size table

Challenges

Blurring Boundary Between Public and Private Life

Table 10 presents the concern about the blurring of boundaries between public and private life through the use of social media for educational purposes. Although most studies acknowledged the effectiveness of social media in promoting interaction and informal learning, some have indicated that students may have reservations about accepting instructors and classmates as their ‘friends’ on social media. Some students hoped that their academic discussion would be kept private, instead of being viewed by all of their friends on social media.

Table 10 Examples of concerns about students’ social life
Full size table

Doubtful Effectiveness of Knowledge Enhancement

Table 11 shows the problems related to the effectiveness of social media for knowledge enhancement. While social media was found to be effective in enhancing student engagement, its effectiveness for enhancing learning outcomes has remained doubtful. Students might not be able to adapt to, and learn more effectively in, academic practices with social media.

Table 11 Examples on challenges for enhancing knowledge
Full size table

Blurring Teacher–Student Relationship

Table 12 presents the findings on a blurring of the teacher–student relationship caused using social media in teaching. The distance between instructors and students is decreased by social media which facilitates a close interaction. However, relevant studies also revealed concern that such a blurring of the relationship would affect the effectiveness of teaching and learning.

Table 12 Examples on blurring teacher–student relationship
Full size table

Inadequate Pedagogical and Technological Skills

Table 13 summarises a number of challenges in relation to the inadequacy of instructors’ pedagogical and technological skills. Instructors may not possess the required skills to use social media effectively in teaching, while students may encounter technical difficulties during the classes which are conducted on social media.

Table 13 Examples on inadequate pedagogical and technological skills
Full size table

Little Integration with Instructional Design

Table 14 shows the related case studies that presented little integration of social media with instructional design, which may reduce the effectiveness of educational practices. It has been recognised that the use of social media alone does not suffice for achieving pedagogical outcomes, and the pedagogical use of social media should be compatible with the relevant instructional design.

Table 14 Examples of the lack of integration with instructional design
Full size table

Discussion

The use of SNSs shown in the case studies revealed the potentials of social media for learning and teaching in higher education. They have been used as an LMS and for the enhancement of student engagement, through ways such as community building and knowledge sharing which help to enrich students’ learning experience.

The high popularity and accessibility of SNSs on various internet and mobile devices have allowed them to encourage students’ access to course materials and participation in course activities and interaction, both inside and outside the class [23]. The features of social media, which usually allow students to engage in anonymous or private communication, enable them to feel comfortable to freely discuss online and comment on others’ ideas [37]. Students’ active participation in social media has made this channel highly applicable for other technology-enhanced learning approaches such as mobile learning [62], blended learning [63], and personalised learning [64], as well as a possible source of data for learning analytics [65]. The use of SNSs may have involved one or more of these approaches. Future work in this area should, therefore, pay more attention to the interoperability of these approaches and identify their effective linkage [66].

It has been shown that social media provides an opportunity for strengthening communication, collaboration and sharing. A closer connection can be developed among students and between students and instructors, where students can get timely responses for their learning and share course-related information via SNSs. The virtual communities built among these participants also help to foster the community of practice and inquiry, and give students a collaborative learning experience. Despite such opportunities, the benefits for students’ academic performance have been less clear. There have been case studies reporting the interactive and collaborative learning supported by social media which have led to the improvement of academic performance [67, 68], and students’ critical thinking, summarising and collaborating skills [52, 59, 69]. However, as one of the challenges identified, it has also been claimed that the influence of social media use on knowledge construction has remained doubtful [23, 30, 55]. There is thus a research gap which requires further examination of the relationship between students’ social engagement on SNSs and their learning outcomes.

The results have shown that blurring the boundary between students’ public and private life, as well as the boundary between the teacher and student relationship, are part of the challenges for social media use. This may involve the need to review and set relevant guidelines for the use of SNSs, such as not requiring students and teachers to use their personal accounts of SNSs for class activities [14]. This also reveals the need to survey students’ and teachers’ perceptions of various ways of adopting SNSs and their most accepted ways of using them for learning activities—as a part of the evaluation of technology-enhanced learning [70]—so as to minimise their potential uncomfortable feelings about the educational use of this channel.

Instructors’ participation in social media use has been shown to be a common feature among the case studies which reported a positive learning outcome. “[C]onsiderable creative involvement from teachers” (p. 35) has been regarded as essential in order to adapt social media effectively to educational practices [71]. The participation of instructors allows them to monitor student involvement and facilitate the interaction on social media. However, the use of SNSs itself may not suffice in leading to desirable pedagogical outcomes. It should be accompanied by clear pedagogical objectives [14], and those existing instructional practices may not be suitable for use on social media which was designed originally for private life [72]. In this regard, future work should address the pedagogical practices which are suitable for use with social media and the kinds of institutional support required for the instructors.

Conclusion

This paper provides an overview of social media use in higher education as well as the related opportunities and challenges revealed from its use. The results contribute to supplement existing reviews and highlight the features of educational practices with social media. For institutions, social media can serve as an LMS to improve students’ engagement in both formal and informal learning, and its use can promote two-way communication, knowledge sharing, community building and collaborative learning. These benefits help to cultivate students’ learning experiences and outcomes.

The challenges for social media use suggest the areas for future work. They cover the concerns about blurring the boundaries between students’ and instructors’ public and private life as well as their relationships; the unclear linkage between social media use and learning outcomes; the insufficient technical skills of instructors; and the incompatibility of existing instructional practice on social media. These challenges have identified the need to examine suitable ways to use social media which would be perceived positively and accepted by users, and lead to desirable pedagogical outcomes. There should also be future work on surveying the needs for support for instructors for their involvement in teaching with social media, and developing effective pedagogies which cope with the features of social media.