Great expectations (lead to abandoned blog posts)

There was a  JISC announcement today regarding new research which suggests that:

students are starting to mix their social networking sites with their academic studies, and inviting tutors and lecturers into their virtual space.

Earlier this week, I highlighted something similar (albeit it with postgraduates), as students were encouraged to create a Facebook profile and use it within their MSc course. Back in March, I mentioned that Facebook had belatedly given users control among specifying how much information could be shared with each friend, as users were able to group friends – personal and work, in my case – and control privacy settings for each one. This ability to control separate groups offers students the chance to interact with fellow students and lecturers while keeping their personal, off-campus life separate.

Andy Powell’s post popped up in my feed reader while I was writing this so I’ve abandoned summarising the rest of the release and would advise heading there for Andy’s summary. The full release and accompanying report are on the JISC site.