Date

2011-02-11

Lecturer

Thuma Miilumäki (TUT)

Summary

Solutions of social media enhanced studying are widely studied in the Hypermedia Laboratory at Tampere University of Technology (TUT). In recent years Web 2.0 based social media services (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, etc.) have become popular, especially among young people. Based on this phenomenon multilevel research has been done to provide convenient tools for interaction and study support using appropriate modern tools and methods provided by social media.

The Hypermedia Laboratory and the Department of Mathematics at TUT has developed a social networking system for university context. TUT Circle is a versatile environment providing multipurpose tools for social interaction and collaborative studying and working at TUT. The system design and development is based on continuous research on student’s attitudes and motivations on usage of social media tools in university context studying and learning.
A concept of a social networking system supporting university level studying and preventing students' social exclusion from study and student communities is designed as a part of R&D project “Campus Conexus” funded by European Social Fund (ESF). In the project TUT Circle is used as a development platform for the studied and developed social media concept. Designed features are piloted and experimented using TUT Circle. The modularity of TUT Circle enables experimentation in different environments and universities, which provides possibilities to develop a large scale design of an adaptive social networking system for universities.

Slides

Videos

Seminario eMadrid sobre "Aprendizaje colaborativo y redes sociales" - Las redes sociales en la educación superior from eMadrid net on Vimeo.

Author Biography

Thumas Miilumäki (TUT)

Thumas Miilumäki is a researcher and a D.Sc. candidate in the Hypermedia Laboratory and the Department of Mathematics at Tampere University of Technology (TUT). He has a Master of Science (Tech.) Degree in Mathematics by TUT (2010). His recent research concerns web-based eLearning systems in terms of designing and development as well as analyzing social learning system usage and activity using social network analysis (SNA) methods and applications. He is currently working as a researcher in several national and international projects. He is working as a part of interdisciplinary research consortium in a national research project “Campus Conexus” funded by European Social Fund (ESF) focusing on designing a concept of a social networking system supporting university level studying and preventing students' social exclusion from study and student communities. He has published several papers and presented them in both national and international conferences.