Usage of Social Networking Tools in Higher Education with Special Reference to Colleges of Jammu Division (J & K), India

摘要

A large number of academic institutes are pioneering scholarly online social environment for providing interactive and multitasking platform of online social networking services such as social networking sites, social media and folksonomy. This paper attempts to explore the usage pattern of social networking tools by faculty of Government Degree Colleges of Jammu Division, J&K (India), for sharing information. The data has been gathered through a semi structured questionnaire from aproportionate stratified random sample of 300 participants from 10 districts of Jammu Division, (J & K), India. The data has been thoroughly 'scrutinized, organized, tabulated and analyzed by the researchers. For analyzing the data, descriptive statistics with frequency and percentages has been used. Overall results pertaining to the usage of social networking tools/Services/sites (SNS) reveal that majority (84%) of the faculty are using (SNS) and have their profile on one of the social network sites, preferably on the most popular site The Facebook" (70%) but are using it mostly as a socializing tool rather than an education, the usage of educational oriented social networking services needs to be promoted through college websites.