Social Network Sites

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• Social Network Sites
• and
• Outreach Programs

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Lisa Peterson, Director Allison Kang, Project
Coordinator Lori Miller, Graduate Staff
Assistant Elena Hernández, Undergraduate Assistant
UW Ctr for Instructional Development
Research Dr. Jessica Yellin, Sr Instructional
Research Consultant
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Workshop Outline

• What are Social Networking Sites?
• History and Use of SNS
• Social, Legal and Ethical Considerations
• Challenging Scenarios (in small groups)

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What are Social Network Sites?

• Familiar sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace
• Social network sites allow people to
• Construct a public or semi-public profile within
  a bounded system
• Articulate a list of their Friends
• View their Friends, and other users Friends and
  connections

boyd, d. and N.B. Ellison, Social network sites
Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, 2008. 13 p.
210-230.
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How might you imagine that Social Network Sites
work?

• What are your ideas?
• Individual profile
• Friends with a capital F vs. friends flat
  level of social connection
• Messages public, private
• Applications
• Photos

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How outreach programs can use sites like
Facebook to build community and advertise events

• Elena Hernández and Allison Kang

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Facebook Demographics

• Over 200 million active users, over 2/3 are not
  in college
• More than 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook
  each day (25 min/day average)
• More than 20 million users update at least once
  each day
• Over 17 of Internet users are on Facebook each
  day
• 29 of users are from the US

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Lisa Petersons profile on Facebook
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Facebook Groups
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Lisa Petersons LinkedIn Profile
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Legal, Social, and Ethical Considerations in
Tracking Student/Alumni Progress on Social
Network SitesLisa Peterson, Lori Miller,
Jessica Yellin
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Facebook Policies

• Must give Facebook
• your name, email address, telephone number,
  address, gender, schools attended
• Facebook tracks
• Browser type, IP address, stores cookies
• Facebook retains
• All information in users personal profiles, their
  relationships, messages, searches, queries,
  groups, events, added applications
• Facebook also collects
• Information about users from newspapers, blogs,
  instant messaging services, and other Facebook
  users
• Facebook shares with others
• Users names, network names, and profile picture
  thumbnails appear in search results across
  Facebook and in third party search engines.
• Facebook may use profile information in users
  profile (without identifying them as an
  individual) to third parties for aggregating how
  many people in a network like a band or movie and
  personalizing advertisements and promotions
• Facebook tells users
• All such sharing of information is done at their
  own risk. If users disclose personal information
  in their profile or when posting anything , this
  information may become publicly available

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Privacy Issues

• Both Facebook and LinkedIn use the following
• TRUSTe
• Consultant for online privacy issues
• EU Safe Harbor Privacy Framework
• Voluntary. Indicates to European customers that
  US companies will comply with European privacy
  framework. Failure to comply could result in
  unfair/deceptive trade under FTC.
• Seven basic principles of privacy notice,
  choice, onward transfer, security, data
  integrity, access, enforcement

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Using Social Network Sites for tracking
  Twitter MySpace Facebook LinkedIn
Instant communication X X X  
Academic affiliation     X  
Professional affiliation       X
Established privacy regulations X X X X
Rigorous outside evaluation of privacy     X X
Search contacts of connections X X X X
Rich source of data   X X X
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Legal Issues Using Internet Communities to Track
Student Progress and Conduct Evaluation

• The Courts have been reluctant to address privacy
  issues in cyberspace, so there is little
  precedence
• A default SNS profile is similar to a yearbook,
  bulletin board, directory it is public
• If the user actively restricts the default
  settings, there may be a reasonable expectation
  of privacy
• Legally, an individual has no legitimate
  expectation of privacy if they turn over their
  data to a third party (i.e., Facebook)
• If person A accepts another person as a Friend
  B, then the expectation of privacy is
  eliminated between them
• Does that mean that B can then forward the data
  on to another party?

Hodge, M.J., The fourth amendment and privacy
issues on the "new" internet Facebook.com and
MySpace.com. Southern Illinois University Law
Journal, 2006. 31 p. 95-123.
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Legal Examples in Higher Education Students
Behaving Badly

• Penn State police used student-posted photos on
  Facebook to identify alleged offenders in a
  football riot, October 2005
• In October 2005, a student was expelled from
  Fisher for negative comments about a campus
  police officer made on Facebook. The comments
  were in violation of the college's code of
  conduct.
• In February 2006, police were directed to the
  Facebook profile of a Miami University student
  because it showed the police sketch of a rape
  suspect as the account owner's personal picture.
  The police arrested the student and charged him
  with inducing panic.
• Several schools have charged students with
  underage drinking/noise violations based on data
  from SNSs
• In August 2006, police officers at the University
  of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign used Facebook to
  charge a student with obstruction of justice.

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Social Examples in Higher Education Potential
Loss of Opportunity/Privacy

• Organizations/individuals may search Social
  Network Sites to gather additional data beyond a
  resume or application
• Scholarships
• Graduate Schools
• Potential Employers
• Government Agencies
• Law Enforcement

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Ethical Issues Using Internet Communities to
Track Student Progress and Conduct Evaluation

• Research vs. Outreach
• Publishing vs. Internal Evaluation

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Using Internet Communities to Track Student
Progress and Conduct Evaluation

• Facebook
• GenOM started off using it as a community
  building and communications tool
• It quickly became a rich source of data for
  tracking students, adding to the depth of data
  that GenOM has for evaluations
• LinkedIn
• A powerful resource for connecting with long-lost
  alumni

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Ethical Frameworks What is the right act? What
makes it so?

• Virtue
• if it enacts a core purpose of the actors
  position
• Outcome
• if the good consequences outweigh the bad
• Principal
• if it follows fundamental moral rules (i.e., The
  Belmont Report)

US National Commission for the Protection of
Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral
Research, The Belmont report Ethical guidelines
for the protection of human subjects of research.
1979, US Government Printing Office Washington
DC.
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Secret Challenge Envelopes!

• Divide into groups of mixed SNS/non-SNS users
• Read the ethical challenge
• Discuss amongst yourselves ethical/legal issues
  and solutions using the designated ethical
  framework
• Report out to the group

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Recommendations

• What are your thoughts?
• Should we get informed consent from students
  prior to using Social Networking Sites for
  tracking for internal evaluation?
• Should we get informed consent from students
  prior to using Social Networking Sites for
  tracking for external reporting?

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Additional Information
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Facebook History

• February 2004 Founded at Harvard by Mark
  Zuckerberg over half of Harvards undergrad
  population signed up within one month
• March 2004 Expanded to Yale, Stanford, Columbia
• June 2004 Moved to Palo Alto, expanded to most
  universities
• September 2005 Launched high school version
• September 2006 Open to everyone 13 and older
  with a valid email
• October 2007 Microsoft purchase 1.6 share for
  240M
• April 2008 Overtook MySpace in unique visitors
• October 2008 International HQ established in
  Dublin
• Currently the 5th most popular website in the
  world

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How does GenOM use Social Network Sites?

• Current Students
• Mostly Facebook
• Groups
• Post photographs (with media permission
  signatures on file)
• Email groups
• Send individual messages
• Invite to events
• Use carefully selected applications to send warm
  fuzzies keeping the communication lines open
• See where students are now and what they are doing

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• Former students
• Still use Facebook when appropriate
• Primarily use LinkedIn
• Facebook for grown-ups!
• Outstanding tool for connecting with students who
  graduated years ago
• Alumni groups
• Professional groups
• Recommendations
• Job postings

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Outreach Staff on Facebook

• Youre not alone there are over 300,000
  faculty/staff on Facebook now!
• Students may see staff/teachers use of Facebook
  as a way to foster positive relationships with
  students
• Enhance credibility, demonstrate contemporary
  cultural awareness tech-savvy
• Students recommendations
• Carefully choose what information to display to
  create a comfortable classroom/program
  environment, protect credibility
• Leave politics out
• A good way to communicate (email is old-school)
• If you are a teacher, give class examples,
  describe teaching style
• Be yourself, describe some of your outside
  interests, but dont provide information that
  students can tease you about
• Respect students privacy dont gossip, spy or
  make judgements about their sites
• Mazer, J.P., R.E. Murphy, and C.J. Simonds, I'll
  see you on "Facebook" The effects of
  computer-mediated teacher self-disclosure on
  student motivation, affective learning, and
  classroom climate. Communication Education, 2007.
  56(1) p. 1-17.

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LinkedIn

• Founded May 2003
• Over 39 million members
• Web traffic rank 102
• Average time on site 6.7 minutes/day
• 49.1 of users from US

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LinkedIn

• Online portfolio with public information about
  you as a professional
• Potential clients, service providers, and
  recommended experts
• Create and collaborate on projects, gather data,
  share presentations, documents, and calendars
• Job search and job listings
• Full view only available to users with paid
  membership

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Social Network Site Demographics College
Students

• Over 90 of college students have a site on an
  SNS
• Women are slightly more likely to use SNSs than
  men
• Black students average more Friends on Facebook
  than White students
• Hispanics are overrepresented on MySpace,
  underrepresented on Facebook
• All ethnic/racial groups Facebook Friend
  networks are more diverse than those of White
  students
• MySpace users are less likely to have a college
  education are less likely to have parents who
  graduated from high school or college
• Students of color use SNSs more often than White
  students, and spend more time on SNS
• stay in touch with family/friends who live away,
  nurture pre-college friendships
• may be tied to persistence
• may be an effective way to encourage social
  connections between students of color, which is
  important to minority student success in college

Hargittai, E., Whose space? Differences among
users and non-users of social network sites.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2008.
13 p. 276-297. Lewis, K., et al., Tastes, ties,
and time A new social network dataset using
Facebook.com. Social Networks, 2008. 30 p.
330-342. Strayhorn, T.L. and A.M. Blakewood
(2009) Racial differences in first-year students'
use of MySpace and Facebook. NetResults Critical
Issues for Student Affairs Practitioners.
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Legal Examples in Higher Education Students
STILL Behaving Badly Academics

• In November 2005, Kansas State University
  investigated a possible violation of the school's
  honor code. Over 100 students used a Facebook
  message board to share class information without
  authorization from the professor
• Students created a Facebook group to complain
  about a professor's teaching at the University of
  Louisville, and were responsible in part for
  dismissal of that instructor in February 2006.
  The students were not punished
• In February 2006, four Syracuse University
  students were placed on disciplinary probation
  after creating a Facebook group entitled "Clearly
  instructor's first name doesn't know what she's
  doing ever." The group posted derogatory and
  personal attacks.
• In February 2007, 11 students at a secondary
  school in Caledon, Ontario were suspended after
  posting comments about their principal on
  Facebook
• Recently, a student was dismissed from medical
  school after refusing to stop harassing another
  medical student on Facebook

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Social Examples in Higher Education Racism

• March 2006 Baylor.
• Pictures were posted on Facebook of partygoers
  wearing bandanas and carrying 40-ounce beer
  bottles wrapped in brown paper one young woman
  sported layers of bronzer to darken her skin.
  Facebook removed the photos from the site. Black
  student groups called for a university-sponsored
  open forum to discuss the racially insensitive
  campus climate
• January 2007 University of Illinois at
  Urbana-Champaign.
• Facebook removed a page for a pro-Chief Illiniwek
  group after racist and violent remarks about
  Native Americans were discovered
• January 2007 University of Connecticut.
• Photos were posted of a Bullets and Bubbly
  themed party. Facebook removed the photos. The
  university held an open forum discussing the
  insensitive nature of the party and photos
• November 2008 University of Texas.
• An offensive lineman was dismissed from the team
  for posting a racially insensitive remark about
  then President-elect Barack Obama on his Facebook
  page
• April 2009 Isle of Man.
• 95 Facebook members on this tiny island formed a
  group called the Isle of Man KKK. At least 33
  members were also students at Ballakarmeen High
  School. The high school staff noticed the group
  and alerted Facebook, who shut the group down.

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Social Examples in Higher Education Potential
Loss of Privacy/Identity Theft

• Default setting on Facebook is that everyone can
  see everything
• 77 of Facebook users had not read the privacy
  policy most did not know that Facebook collects
  and shares their data
• Very easy to cross Facebook data with other
  anonymized data such as health records, student
  housing, voter registration, etc. Most US
  individuals can be identified using a combo of
  5-digit zip code, gender, and birthday.
• 90.8 of Facebook profiles contain an
  identifiable image 87.8 reveal birthdate, 95
  reveal real name, 50.8 reveal residence

Fuchs, C., Social networking sites and the
surveillance society A critical case study of
the usage of studiVZ , Facebook and MySpace by
students in Salzburg in the context of electronic
surveillance. 2009, ICTS Center
Salzburg/Vienna, Austria. Gross, R. and A.
Acquisti. Information revelation and privacy in
online social networks. in Workshop on Privacy in
the Electronic Society. 2005. Alexandria,
Virginia. Tufecki, Z., Can you see me now?
Audience and disclosure regulation in online
social network sites. Bulletin of Science,
Technology Society, 2008. 28(1) p. 20-36 .
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Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

• Among others, FERPA allows schools to disclose
  student records, without consent, to
• School officials with legitimate educational
  interest
• Specified officials for audit or evaluation
  purposes
• Organizations conducting studies for or on behalf
  of the school
• information disclosed under this exception must
  be protected so that students cannot be
  personally identified by anyone other than
  representatives of the organization conducting
  the study
• In addition,
• Schools may inform parents if a student who is
  under 21 has violated any law or policy
  concerning the use or possession of alcohol or a
  controlled substance
• Educational records may be redisclosed for
  another qualifying audit, evaluation, compliance
  or enforcement purpose