College connect prototype_final

College ConnectSupporting Students' Use of Facebook

for Building Social Capital around College Going

Nicole Ellison * Christine Greenhow * Bernie Hogan

Social Capital

“Social capital” describes the resources (information or social support) we get from our social connections

High school students, especially first-generation students, lack informational support about the college-going process in their immediate family network

Facebook connects them to a wide array of connections: extended family like cousins, friends of older siblings, students who have graduated from their high school, etc. Studies suggest Facebook use is linked to higher levels of social capital (Ellison et al., 2007; 2011) But how do you know who can help you with which questions?

College Connect makes it easier for student to find useful resources in their network and engage with them around relevant topics and questions.

How does it work?

The College Connect application: Mines Facebook profile pages to highlight individuals

in your network who list or “like” colleges and are more likely to either currently be attending or have attended college

Collects and analyzes social network data to identify people who are more likely to be useful sources of info E.g., “Bridges” between two clusters tend to have higher

levels of social capital

Scaffolds the process of asking for help by providing prompts and sample questions

Why Facebook?

Over 75% of teenagers (aged 12-17) have a profile on a social network site (Lenhart et al.,2010)

Young people spend an average of nine hours a week on a social network site (NSBA, 2007).

Facebook networks often replicate offline networks – they typically consist of “real life” Friends and acquaintances, not strangers

Facebook enables users to broadcast requests for information and to engage with “Friends of Friends” who may be useful sources of novel information

Precursor to College Connect is the NameGenWeb Facebook app (shown below)

Sample of Proposed Functionality: College Connect Facebook App

Connect ConnectConnect Connect

College Connect Walk-through

A separate Profile on the College Connect App allows us to have a separate database for user information. We link using an anonymized FB identifier (provided by GraphAPI).

Anyone pressing “Skip” will be able to see and interact with their network, but the program will forget them as soon as they log out.

College Connect Walk-through

Even using our highly optimized methods, collecting network information can be slow.

We will give a personalized 'guesstimate' for networks based on size (example above is 1 minute for 500 friends, which is fair using current algorithms).

College Connect Walk-through

We use “badges” to provide support for interacting with network information & signaling actions completed without being too instructional or prescriptive.

Some badges will be revealed depending on where someone is in regards to life course or experience.

Badges also help signal expertise within the College Connect community.

Banner at top will send user to the College Connect profile with its separate 'history.’

All history items will be stored within College Connect App with a 'share on Facebook' and 'Tweet this' button, rather than auto-pushing to the FB wall to support user choice/control.

We provide minimal guidance about layout and clustering, as user tests indicate people intuitively understand the visualization once they mouse over different people.

Badges will show tasks that the user is encouraged to accomplish. May be reflective (e.g., find friends based on education, interest, major, etc.)

or social (e.g., message a friend using a pre-populated question suggestion to scaffold interaction or a customized one).

Time-released badges promote repeat engagement.

"Design your own Badge" encourages goal-directed social play with ones network.

Mousing over a person’s “dot” reveals their name (as does searching or zooming in). Clicking on a person reveals a side panel showing colleges attending, colleges liked, etc. Next to each is a bubble.

When clicked, the bubble expands showing a series of pre-defined questions based on the college experience, etc. and an entry field for entering a customized question. Questions are sent through FB messaging. Question sets will adapt based on our lit review, user testing, and project goals.

Modify Info Pane for College Connect

The College Connect Profile’s Info Pane will include info related to college-going (e.g., colleges liked, college attending, graduated from, major, high school, & more)

A separate private history (or 'newsfeed') within the application enables people to control what information they send back to Facebook. This accommodates those who are gregarious and those who are shy (or embarrassed to talk about college).

We want to encourage strong integration with Facebook, but also want users to consider College Connect a 'safe space' where college aspirations might be explored even if (or especially when) publicly showing college aspirations or apprehensions would not mesh well with their current online persona.

Scenario: Rosita

Rosita is a first-generation, Latina teen in LA. None of her current friends are applying to 4-year colleges.

She logs into College Connect and looks for Friends who have posted about 4-year colleges. It identified a good prospect for questions - a high school friend of her older brother currently at UCLA with a high friend count. The app encourages her to send him a private message by highlighting the things they have in common and proposing a template for a message which she personalizes.

She writes him a note asking about scholarships for Latina students interested in science. Although he doesn’t know the answer, he puts her in touch with one of his Friends who does.

Scenario: Joe

Joe isn’t really interested in going to college, but he likes the idea of seeing how his friends are connected to each other.

He loads the College Connect app and starts playing around with it.

He notices that about 15 of his Friends all are connected – people he didn’t think knew each other. By exploring their profiles, he sees that they are all fans of the school newspaper.

He realizes that working on the newspaper is also a social activity. One of his friends points out that it also looks good on college applications. Joe starts to think more about college. He also joins the newspaper and finds he enjoys reporting, prompting him to look into journalism programs at a local community college.

Are there privacy concerns?

The College Connect app adheres to all privacy settings set by users and their Friends.

Any research using server-level data will be approved by the Human Subjects Review boards of the relevant institutions.

Users will have control over what is posted to their profile or Wall from the app, and will be able to send either private messages or public Wall posts.

College Connect is…

Nicole Ellison, PhDSchool of Information, University of Michigan

Christine Greenhow, PhDCollege of Education, Michigan State UniversityCo-founder College Possible

Bernie Hogan, PhDOxford Internet Institute

Selected References Ellison, N. B., Wohn, D.Y., Khan, M. L. & Fewins-Bliss, R. (2012).

Reshaping access: An overview of research on access to higher education, social media and social capital [White paper].

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 12, 1143-1168. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x

Ellison, N.B., Steinfield, C. & Lampe, C. (2011). Connection Strategies: Social capital implications of Facebook-enabled communication practices. New Media & Society, 13, 873-892. doi: 10.1177/1461444810385389

Greenhow, C. & Burton, L. (2011). Help from my “Friends:” Social capital in the social network sites of low-income high school students. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 45, 223-245.

Wohn, DY, Ellison, N., Khan, ML, Fewins-Bliss, R., & Gray, R. (working paper). The Role of Social Media in Shaping First-Generation High School Students' College Aspirations: A Social Capital Lens.