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The use of social media in higher education has been demonstrated in a number of studies to be an attractive and contemporary method of teaching and learning. However, further research and investigation are required in order to align social media's pedagogical benefits with the theoretical perspectives that inform educational practices. It is the objective of this study to provide a systematic literature review using bibliometric analysis techniques and content analysis to provide a map of research produced between 2009 and 2021. This study aims to identify theoretical frameworks, current research trends, and patterns in this field. A total of 772 publications were analysed using bibliometric methodology, while a subset of 55 publications were analysed using content analysis. As indicated by the results, there is still a growing interest in this area of research, with recent studies still focusing on attitudes towards the use of social media in teaching and learning. According to the content analysis, technology acceptance theories and learning theories are the most commonly used reference theories. This field has yet to elaborate on pedagogical theory, and there is a tendency to rely primarily on technology acceptance models rather than pedagogical models. A discussion of future practice and research implications is also provided.

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile social networking applications to supplement formal education has attracted a great deal of attention. Teachers do have opportunities to join students' online groups to share, clarify, and exchange housekeeping information and course-related content with them. Teachers can, in particular, provide English as a foreign language (EFL) students with more sources of linguistic input, interaction, and feedback. Research investigating this potential, however, is still scarce in such contexts. The current study explores the likely affordances of teaching presence in students' WhatsApp groups for designing, facilitating, and guiding cognitive and social processes conducive to their language learning. A mixed-method design was employed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data and information from English-major undergraduates (N = 111) and faculty teachers (N = 8) who joined the same WhatsApp groups for one academic semester at a major university in Oman. Descriptive and thematic analyses of data from a survey with both closed-ended and open-ended questions and semi-structured interviews indicate that the shared WhatsApp groups functioned as small close-knit communities where students were able to constantly access teachers for their assistance, feedback, and clarification of content. Despite these merits, however, the participating faculty believed that the presence of teachers in WhatsApp groups might have consequences for students' tolerance of ambiguity, scaffolding, and autonomous language learning. The paper concludes by discussing several pedagogical implications and directions for future research.

Background: Holocaust memory and learning processes have become increasingly mediatised as a result of rapid technological advances. There is, however, little information available regarding how people learn about this topic informally through social media. Objectives: This paper explores how adult learners develop their learning ecologies by using social media to learn about the Holocaust informally. Methods: The study uses a learning ecology perspective to analyse the interests, expectations and learning process of a group of adult learners (N = 276). An online survey tool was developed to collect information on the interests, expectations, and benefits of learning about Holocaust-related topics among online users of four Italian Holocaust museums' social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to summarise the characteristics of the sample and to answer the research questions. Results and Conclusions: The results show that most of the respondents are mostly women, with an average age of 50 and a higher level of education. In terms of interest and expectations, they are particularly interested in issues related to the intertwining of transnational and national memory. They also express a sense of civic responsibility with regard to the legacy of the Holocaust. Finally, components of the learning process show proactive behaviour and a preference for individual learning, while interaction with peers is considered less important. Takeaways: There is an urgent need to understand how learners' preferences influence the development of learning ecologies and the types of content they are most likely to be exposed to as a result. It is also important for social media content providers to understand that learners are looking for quality resources and trustworthy content to further their education.

ResearchGate and Academia.edu have been increasingly acknowledged as the most popular academic social network sites (ASNS) for scholarly communication. Along with their benefits for supporting communication and knowledge sharing within academic communities, concerns over quality and credibility remain a pertinent issue. In terms of research investigation, ASNS have attracted strong attention for new scholarly practice and their potential for building, maintaining and enhancing reputation. However, a thorough understanding is still lacking of how these sites operate as networked socio-technical systems reshaping scholarly practices and academic identity. This article analyses 39 empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals with a specific focus on ResearchGate and Academia.edu. The aim is to describe the status of the research and to identify gaps and priorities in the areas of scholarly networked learning and shared knowledge. Results show that the number of studies focusing on ResearchGate was more than double those dedicated to Academia.edu. While both sites have attracted attention in the library and information sciences as deployments for reputation building and alternative ranking systems, such as ResearchGate metrics, there is a dearth of research investigating practices and new modes of communication in the light of a networked participatory approach to scholarship. Most of the studies analysed focused on the general uptake or impact assessment of alternative metrics, while very few investigated individual and collective scholarly practices. This study points to the need for specific research on open and distributed learning achieved in ASNS according to a networked learning perspective.

Research on scholars' use of social media suggests that these sites are increasingly being used to enhance scholarly communication by strengthening relationships, facilitating collaboration among peers, publishing and sharing research products, and discussing research topics in open and public formats. However, very few studies have investigated perceptions and attitudes towards social media use for scholarly communication of large cohorts of scholars at national level. This study investigates the reasons for using social media sites for scholarly communication among a large sample of Italian university scholars (N = 6139) with the aim of analysing what factors mainly affect these attitudes. The motivations for using social media were analysed in connection with frequency of use and factors like gender, age, years of teaching, academic title, and disciplinary field. The results point out that for the most used tools the influence of the variables examined was higher in shaping scholars' motivations. In fact, frequency of use, age, years of teaching, and disciplinary field were found to be relevant factors especially for LinkedIn and ResearchGate-Academia.edu, while gender and academic title seemed to have a limited impact on scholars' motivations for all social media sites considered in the study. Considerations for future research are provided along with limitations of the study.

In the research subfield of social media memory studies (Birkner & Donk, 2020), digital memory of relevant historical events has its own scholarship and avenues of publication (e.g., Garde-Hansen et al., 2009; Hoskins, 2011). As for the specific area of Holocaust studies, with the passing of the generation that witnessed and experienced the Holocaust (Wieviorka, 2006), scholars have stressed that learning about the Holocaust will progressively rely less on public speakers and more on audio-visual testimonies and second and third generation accounts (Gross & Stevick, 2015; Hirsch, 2012). Scholars have advanced the idea of a "virtual Holocaust memory" to consider both digital and non-digital memory projects related to the Holocaust that draw attention to the pervasive nature of the virtuality of memory (Walden, 2019). Despite the pace at which technology has advanced and become woven into the fabric of youths' lives, it is still unclear how "the internet and in particular social media impact on students' knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust" (Gray, 2014, p. 105). Moreover, scholars argue that for contemporary digital users, there is a need to "resurrect" Holocaust commemoration through the creation of immersive and more engaging memories as mass media such as cinema and television may be no longer suitable (Kansteiner, 2017). This study provides a review of social media use for Holocaust remembrance and for teaching and learning about the Holocaust. The aim is to identify the main topics of research and potential connections between the two fields and to provide indications for further research.

While Holocaust museums have embraced social media to connect with online audiences and provide educational materials, the specifics of their use are not well understood. A Delphi study involving 22 experts developed a framework for examining Holocaust-related social media content. This framework, the result of a three-round iterative process, includes three main areas: Historical content of the Holocaust, Contemporary issues related to the Holocaust, and Museum activities and communication. The hierarchical system of categories can help users explore the vast range of online materials and help educators identify effective strategies for using social media content in Holocaust education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been increasing emphasis on the benefits of social media and social network sites to foster young people's participation in digital public spaces and their civic engagement. Using the principles of the Student Voice approach, this study investigated the use of a Facebook group to support secondary school students' voices and viewpoints on school quality and policy (N = 98). The results showed that students were reluctant to be active in the group for several reasons, such as mistrust of school policies and resistance to combining Facebook use with school-related issues. The low participation provided clues to reflect on the design of Student Voice projects to support civic engagement at school and to evaluate the use of digital sites to support Student Voice. Some considerations on the reasons for project failure and how to successfully reach student participation in a technology-enhanced environment at school that addresses power relations, authenticity and inclusion are provided.

This conceptual paper deals with some of the implications that the use of social network sites, though not originally developed and conceived for learning purposes, have for schools and academic activities when they are used as tools able to modify and innovate teaching/learning practices and academic culture. Beside the differences that characterize the two contexts, the attention that social network tools are progressively gaining in schools and higher education practices and pedagogies requires adjustments in learning and teaching that should be constantly considered by educators and policy makers. These environments are also presenting new and crucial opportunities for teacher training and teachers' professional development. The purpose of the study is to reflect on some significant challenges and opportunities offered by social network sites, and how to exploit the latter, in relation to a number of themes. These themes have been identified as those that deserve better comprehension and further research investigation: communication between students and teachers and appropriate professional behaviours; pedagogical and technological challenges related to incorporating social networking practices into teaching and academic practices; how social networking can be exploited for teachers' professional training and development. The study also provides some implications for policy and practice.

Holocaust education, which refers to the teaching and learning of the Holocaust—the systematic genocide of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II—is an essential component of history and social studies education in many countries. Its primary aim is to raise awareness of the Holocaust, promote understanding of its historical significance and develop critical thinking and empathy in students. However, despite the increasing specialisation and institutionalisation of Holocaust education, there is still a lack of understanding of how Holocaust educators acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to teach the subject effectively. This study aims to explore the learning ecologies of a group of Italian Holocaust educators, focusing on their motivations for initial and lifelong learning and their learning practices. Ten in‐depth interviews were conducted with teachers from different subject areas. The results showed that participants were driven by either personal or curricular motivations and interests and used a range of learning approaches for both initial and lifelong learning. Although few participants considered digital technologies and social media as a learning environment, they were found to be useful resources. The study concludes with practical implications for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By articulating a shared victimhood or guilt or responsibility, memorial museums are designed as ethical projects that encourage visitors to learn from the past to build a "better future". In contemporary Europe, Holocaust memorials and museums constitute a trajectory of remembrance about public Holocaust memory that consolidates political legitimacy and articulates national narratives of the legacy of WWII. In parallel, increasing adoption and spread of digital technologies have resulted in a convergence and a globalisation of themes and user interests associated with Holocaust memory. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perspectives and interests of users of the social media profiles of a group of Holocaust museums and memorials in Germany and Italy. Using a primarily quantitative approach, the study sought to understand the motivations, interests, and online activities of users of nine Holocaust museums and memorials. While national narratives regarding public policy continue to diverge in the two countries, users express a convergence of interests and motivations when using these social media profiles. This dual venture of Holocaust memory is a complex yet powerful example of how the globalisation of digital media is playing an increasingly significant role in European contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, little empirical research on professional use of social network sites has been conducted, particularly with reference to groups of teachers on Facebook. The paper presents the results of two surveys addressed to the founders of five Italian Facebook groups and their members (n = 1107), with the aim of investigating mechanisms underlying group membership and reflecting on their implications for professional development. A number of hypotheses were tested in order to explore the nature of three dimensions (domain, network and practice) involved in these groups, assimilated by authors into networks of practice. The study investigated the mechanisms of group membership and their participatory dynamics in terms of group types (generic vs. thematic), duration of membership and the interplay between offline and online activities. Results showed that groups differing in terms of domain (generic or thematic) are characterized by particular mechanisms of affiliation and participation and that mechanisms of legitimation of the members, as well as of shared resources, are associated with the duration of membership. Further research should be conducted to investigate how social capital dynamics evolve over time, influencing the construction of group identity. (Contains 7 tables.)

This paper describes a method for analysing the learning processes that take place in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. The approach is based on tracking the interactions between learners and tutors. Keeping track of meaningful events serves three main purposes: evaluation of the quality of the process, monitoring students' performance in real time and the assessment of individual learning performances. The results can be of benefit to course designers, tutors/instructors and researchers involved in collaborative learning experiences. The method is based on a five-dimensional model that includes a participative, an interactive, a social, a cognitive and a teaching dimension. Each dimension can be analysed through a set of indicators obtained by tracking course participants' behaviour within the learning environment. Examples of significant indicators, drawn from the literature and the authors' field experience, are discussed for each dimension. The paper also proposes a taxonomy of the data needed to obtain the described indicators. Finally, possible directions for further research are outlined.

This study investigated how the participants of an online learning course employed figurative language to express their emotions and feelings during the learning experience. Textual analysis was carried out in the social and metacognitive discussion areas as those related to the expression of the social dimension. Its aim was to analyze the distribution of figurative language across the course, to understand if figurative language elicited the creation of new figurative language, and to classify recurring types of conceptual categories. Results show that figurative language use increased in coincidence with crucial, social events; it did not necessarily encourage the production of further figurative language; and it allowed participants to represent their affective domain and to conceptualize the learning environment in an original manner. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Describes the use of SoftArc Intranet FirstClass, a collaborative learning environment that uses computer conferencing, and discusses pros and cons of choosing this system for running online courses from a distance. Presents case studies from Italy and presents viewpoints of students, tutors, designers and administrators. (Author/LRW)

Purpose: Although current research has investigated how open research data (ORD) are published, researchers' behaviour of ORD sharing on academic social networks (ASNs) remains insufficiently explored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the connections between ORDs publication and social activity to uncover data literacy gaps. Design/methodology/approach: This work investigates whether the ORDs publication leads to social activity around the ORDs and their linked published articles to uncover data literacy needs. The social activity was characterised as reads and citations, over the basis of a non-invasive approach supporting this preliminary study. The eventual associations between the social activity and the researchers' profile (scientific domain, gender, region, professional position, reputation) and the quality of the ORD published were investigated to complete this picture. A random sample of ORD items extracted from ResearchGate (752 ORDs) was analysed using quantitative techniques, including descriptive statistics, logistic regression and K-means cluster analysis. Findings: The results highlight three main phenomena: (1) Globally, there is still an underdeveloped social activity around self-archived ORDs in ResearchGate, in terms of reads and citations, regardless of the published ORDs quality; (2) disentangling the moderating effects over social activity around ORD spots traditional dynamics within the "innovative" practice of engaging with data practices; (3) a somewhat similar situation of ResearchGate as ASN to other data platforms and repositories, in terms of social activity around ORD, was detected. Research limitations/implications: Although the data were collected within a narrow period, the random data collection ensures a representative picture of researchers' practices. Practical implications: As per the implications, the study sheds light on data literacy requirements to promote social activity around ORD in the context of open science as a desirable frontier of practice. Originality/value: Researchers data literacy across digital systems is still little understood. Although there are many policies and technological infrastructure providing support, the researchers do not make an in-depth use of them. Peer review: The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-05-2021-0255. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study takes a social-technical systems approach to investigate how national and transnational memory of the Holocaust are intertwined on the social media profiles of a set of Italian museums and memorials. We examine how Italy's four most important Holocaust museums and memorials use social media as ecosystems to provide historical content and engage their audiences in digital remembrance about the Holocaust on four social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Results show that posts on Facebook led to a higher volume of interactivity and positive responses than posts on the other platforms, while user activity in terms of creating new posts remains low on all four platforms. The four institutions tend to address a national audience and interweave transnational Holocaust memorial themes with distinctively national ones. Although the examined social media profiles demonstrate that museums and memorials are reliable sources of historical and trustworthy information through which they shape memory ecologies, their use reflects a conservational attitude, with a preference for a target audience over the age of 25, expressed both in the choice of platforms adopted and in the mostly one-way communication approach employed. The paper outlines implications for further social media practice in Digital Holocaust Memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we adopt an ecological perspective to reflect on how a specific Italian school cluster adapted to the challenges of the COVID‐19 pandemic by focusing on how students experienced the interplay between continuity and change in school teaching and learning practices caused by the pandemic. Specifically, the study investigates how the school's physical/virtual learning system was (re)configured to provide new opportunities for learning to a thousand‐plus population of primary and secondary students, and how they reacted to the transition to distance learning in terms of participation, autonomy, motivation and engagement. The research adopts a mixed method approach, based on school management system data and a survey tool, and analyses the students' response to the emergency from the perspectives of the students themselves, their teachers and their parents. While these converged in positive evaluation of the experience, a number of lessons were learnt, such as the importance of building on favourable pre‐existing conditions and leveraging a solid shared school culture to promote a prompt reaction to the emergency. Significantly, students with an immigrant background displayed varying degrees of participation in online activities. Overall, for each of the three stakeholder groups surveyed, solid pre‐existing digital competence levels and close collaboration within the school community were the most important factors for non‐traumatic transition to distance learning. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic? Research on the relationship between the COVID‐19 pandemic and the effects on teaching and learning processes is constantly increasing.Most recently published studies focus on higher education, while very few investigate the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on K‐12 education.Very few papers have studied the interplay between change and continuity within an educational ecosystem in times of crisis.What this paper adds? This is one of the first studies to analyse the process of systematic transition from onsite learning to online learning within the Italian school system in response to the pandemic.This study employs a multiple perspective research approach to analyse Emergency Remote Education in a sizeable school cluster, with a specific focus on student response.Teachers, students and their families all saw solid pre‐existing digital competence and close school community collaboration as key factors facilitating rapid adjustment to the emergency.Implications for practice and policy Having a solid common school culture to rely on facilitates prompt emergency reaction.Encouraging the creation of professional communities of practice that comprise both expert and novice teachers can help prepare educators to deal with an educational emergency through adoption and appropriate use of technological solutions.Collaboration between school and families proves to be a key factor for dealing with emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, few studies have investigated social media use in Holocaust organizations to engage general public and to help expand their knowledge of the Holocaust. We present an overview of the literature about the usage of social media for Holocaust memorialisation and education and a preliminary study on the usage of Twitter in a sample of six Holocaust museums or organisations in Germany and Italy. Along with the results of a first quantitative analysis, we also provide indications for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educators increasingly teach with social media in varied ways, but they may do so without considering the ways in which social media corporations profit from their uses or compromise transparency, equity, health, safety, and democracy through the design of platforms. There is a lack of scholarship that addresses the curricular topics that educators might investigate to teach about social media platforms and the potential challenges they pose for education and society. In this article, we draw on sociotechnical theories that conceive of social media as microsystems to understand the relationship between users, education, and social media companies. We identify and describe five topics concerning social media design that educators can consider and investigate with students in a variety of settings: user agreements and use of data; algorithms of oppression, echo, and extremism; distraction, user choice, and access for nonusers; harassment and cyberbullying; and gatekeeping for accurate information. In each case, we suggest curricular possibilities for teaching about social media platforms that draw from intersections of curriculum, media, and educational studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media has attracted considerable scholarly interest. Previous research has demonstrated the need for a more comprehensive overview of social media research across diverse disciplines. However, there is a lack of research that identifies the scope of social media integration across educational settings and how it relates to research in other academic disciplines. Harnessing the search terms of previous literature reviews, this study collected data on 80,267 articles from the Web of Science Core Collection database using search terms that were based on previous literature reviews. The data were analyzed using a combination of co-citation and bibliometric analyses via a mixed-methods approach. Our results show that there has been a constant increase in the number of publications concerned with social media, both as a transversal topic and within the educational sector. We are also able to show a range of topical domains in which the vast majority of research on social media is conducted. Our findings have practical implications for scholars and practitioners alike. Scholars can benefit from these types of analyses to identify authors and topic clusters that might otherwise have been unrecognized. Similarly, practitioners can benefit from this overview of the current "state-of-the-art" on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on the movement to give students and student teachers a voice in their education. Topics include the use of educational technologies and online social networks in student teaching and learning. The author presents the view that technology-enhanced learning environments help to increase student participation and engagement in the learning process and in their communities.

Despite their growing popularity, there are many contradictory arguments between supporters and detractors of MOOCs. Nevertheless, the advent of mass-scale online courses is increasingly credited to have the potential to reshape higher education significantly over time, and recent research analyses how and in which ways such a potential can be leveraged. Aim of this conceptual study is to incorporate the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework into learning design practice to overcome current MOOCs pedagogical limitations. In order to be applied to a large number of participants, the three presences of the CoI framework (social, cognitive and metacognitive, and teaching) need to be adjusted and combined with the distributed learning approach. In this way, fostering distributed learning among participants would lead learners to take responsibility for their learning experience through the exploitation of roles and tasks traditionally assigned to distinct and separate roles. These adjustments could address issues of participation, motivation, and enhance successful learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the information gathered from massive learning platforms and social media sites allows to derive a very comprehensive set of learning information. To this aim, data mining techniques can surely help to gain proper insights, personalise learning experiences, formative assessments, performance measurements, as well as to develop new learning and instructional design models. Therefore, a core requirement is to classify, mix, filter and process the big data sources involved by means of proper learning and social learning analytics tools. In this perspective, this paper investigates the most promising applications and issues of big data for the design of the next-generation of massive learning platforms and social media sites. Specifically, it addresses the methodological tools and instruments for social learning analytics, pitfalls arising from the usage of open datasets. and privacy and security aspects. The paper also provides future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss topics appearing elsewhere in the issue, including a case study on the value of online social network Facebook as a teaching aid, professional teachers' use of Facebook, and professional development for teachers.

With the passing of the last testimonies, Holocaust remembrance and Holocaust education progressively rely on digital technologies to engage people in immersive, simulative, and even counterfactual memories of the Holocaust. This preliminary study investigates how three prominent Holocaust museums use social media to enhance the general public's knowledge and understanding of historical and remembrance events. A mixed-method approach based on a combination of social media analytics and latent semantic analysis was used to investigate the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube profiles of Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Auschwitz–Birkenau Memorial and Museum. This social media analysis adopted a combination of metrics and was focused on how these social media profiles engage the public at both the page-content and relational levels, while their communication strategies were analysed in terms of generated content, interactivity, and popularity. Latent semantic analysis was used to analyse the most frequently used hashtags and words to investigate what topics and phrases appear most often in the content posted by the three museums. Overall, the results show that the three organisations are more active on Twitter than on Facebook and Instagram, with the Auschwitz–Birkenau Museum and Memorial occupying a prominent position in Twitter discourse while Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum had stronger presences on YouTube. Although the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibits some interactivity with its Facebook fan community, there is a general tendency to use social media as a one-way broadcast mode of communication. Finally, the analysis of terms and hashtags revealed the centrality of "Auschwitz" as a broad topic of Holocaust discourse, overshadowing other topics, especially those related to recent events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: A COVID-19 outbreak occurred at the end of October 2021 among pilgrims returning from Medjugorje (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Methodology: Whole genome sequencing (WGS) of SARS-CoV-2, epidemiological data, and phylogenetic analysis were used to reconstruct outbreak dynamics. Results: The results suggest that only in one case, associated with the SARS-CoV-2 sub-lineage AY.9.2, it is possible to trace back the place of contagion to Medjugorje, while the other cases were likely to be acquired in the country of origin. Conclusions: The combined use of phylogenetic data derived from WGS, and epidemiological data allowed us to study epidemic dynamics and to formulate a possible hypothesis on the place of exposure to SARS-CoV-2. The identification of different sub-lineages of the SARSCoV-2 Delta variant also suggested that different chains of transmission contributed to the outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]