Despite the fact that key sociological theories of self and identity view the self as fundamentally rooted in networks of interpersonal relationships, empirical research investigating how personal network structure influences the self is conspicuously lacking. To address this gap, we examine links between network structure and role identity…

This article proposes a three-part conceptualisation of the use of Facebook in ethnographic research: as a tool, as data and as context. Longitudinal research with young adults at a time of significant change provides many challenges for the ethnographic researcher, such as maintaining channels of communication and high rates of participant…

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are courses offered for free for any students with an internet connection. Many institutions now offer free MOOCs, including prestigious state universities and private schools. MOOCs are differentiated from ordinary online classes in several ways. Some MOOCs may have as many 50,000 students enrolled in a course…

Within the wide expanse of social networking, educators appear to be gravitating to more protected and exclusive spaces. While teachers often use such popular mainstream social networks as Facebook, they are more likely to seek out and return to less-established networks that offer the privacy, peer-to-peer connections, and resource sharing that…

Educators' reliance on the Internet to research and answer any question, gives rise to a new challenge for students. Like its counterpart at other colleges and universities, Career Services at Burlington County College leads students through a workshop where they analyze their social media presence. The tips and hints help students develop the…

The way in which societies around the globe are governed is changing towards more flexible and networked forms where the government is not the sole and main responsible actor in the organisation, funding, delivery and evaluation of public services. Analysing the new roles of philanthropic organisations, think tanks and business organisations is a…

The overwhelming amount of information available today makes it difficult for users to find useful information and as the solution to this information glut problem, recommendation technologies emerged. Among the several streams of related research, one important evolution in technology is to generate recommendations based on users' own social…

Reminiscing--"the act or process of recalling the past (Butler, 1963, p. 66)"--is a core activity for any society. Research shows that the desire and tradition for reminiscing can be traced back to early civilizations where the elders of the community were responsible to know and share the history of their community (Butler, 1995;…

Networks, such as social networks, are a universal solution for modeling complex problems in real time, especially in the Big Data community. While previous studies have attempted to enhance network processing algorithms, none have paved a path for the development of a persistent storage system. The proposed solution, GraphStore, provides an…

Massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, or MMOs, present an increasingly popular digital media experience whereby identity emerges as players contribute materially to play but contributions are governed by affordances and constraints of the game. Unique to this medium is the player's ability to create and control a digital body--an…

Link recommendation, which suggests links to connect currently unlinked users, is a key functionality offered by major online social networking platforms. Salient examples of link recommendation include "people you may know"' on Facebook and "who to follow" on Twitter. A social networking platform has two types of stakeholder:…

In the last couple of years, a new aspect of online social networking has emerged, in which the strength of social network connections is based not on social ties but mutually shared interests. This dissertation studies these "curation-based" online social networks (CBN) and their suitability for the diffusion of electronic word-of-mouth…

Just as online tools are connecting school communities, so, too, are the ways of raising the funds for grassroots projects changing. Over the past 10 years, increasingly sophisticated tools have been developed to assist with the process of raising money online. Crowdfunding is a new approach that offers donors a gamelike experience, with pledges…

Reflecting on the library literature on Facebook, our experience using Facebook and other social networking sites professionally, and our discussions with librarians about these tools, we question the use of social networking sites in academic libraries and note opportunities for discussion and research. Ultimately, we encourage librarians and…

This article details a study conducted to determine the effectiveness of a professional development model for inservice Spanish teachers. Subjects were participants in intensive summer immersion programs abroad that included a rigorous methodology course advocating sound pedagogical models for lessons and stressed 90%+ target language use in the…