Special Social Network of Academic Universities and Institutes

The advent of the Internet and subsequently social networks brought a wide range of notable changes to the world and affected their personal lives, business, and even education. The influence of social networks on students’ performance includes many opportunities and threats at various levels.

Although the disadvantages of social networks come from their misuse, it has been practical and beneficial in enhancing education performance.

In the following article, we have concentrated on the advantages of the phenomenon by explaining the social network of Academic universities and institutes and describing the concept of microlearning. To know more about the topic, which is one of the most visited ones, join us through the text. 

Social Network for Academics

As the first step, we have prepared a short description of Academic Social Networks. Called short ASNs, Academic Social Networks are similar sites to social networking ones with some differences in their purposes. The latter aims to focus on the academic community, which by developing a profile lets the users connect with other researchers. The online platform also provides the opportunity of sharing academic-related content, which all of them are free to use.

Proposing a user-friendly way to present the research articles or other outputs worldwide distinguishes the platform from the others. In other words, it is an ideal way to share scholarly and research works for the ones who look to and preserve the academic result of their studies in a non-commercial and trusted space. It has also created two other concepts, micro training, and microlearning, and through the next paragraph, we have presented a complete overview of the latter one. 

What Is Microlearning?

The facts in this paragraph will describe microlearning, its characteristics, and how to use it in the training process. Without more ado, let’s start going through the details of microlearning. 

Despite the lack of any official definition for microlearning, it is famous for one key characteristic, brevity, referring to the activities around small learning units or short-term ones. In other words, many sources have defined microlearning as a way of creating short pieces of content focused on one topic for audiences to use wherever and whenever they need it. Although microlearning apps support various types of content, such as text, images, videos, audio, games, test, and quizzes, the users cannot find all of them in all apps. The advent of microlearning refers to many years ago, even before computers.

Microlearning Goals …

However, microlearning‘s taking off coincided with the emergence of modern smartphones. Many define the concept as an event that comes true due to the leading platform of social media, including Twitter and Instagram, but educational. As an appropriate method for the current era, which is full of schedules with a short attention span, microlearning is the perfect model for training in academic universities and institutes. Going through the microlearning details has shown that it contains three goals. One of them is organizing info into smaller pieces that lead to a reduction in the info quantity. Two other goals are restructuring the whole process and environment of learning and motivating students to personalize the routine of education. 

How Does Social Media Affect Microlearning?

We have allocated the following paragraph to the process of microlearning which occurs through social media platforms. Encouraging learning besides engaging learners wherever and whenever they are is one of the advantages that have come true of the mobile-first interfaces of social media platforms. That is why social media tools are available for learners where they already are. In addition to the mentioned items, one of the other benefits of social media platforms in the microlearning process is providing them the chance to make personalized learning in a social environment for learners. 

The inability of the educational system to meet the job market requirements has earned young people an unwillingness to read bulky books or listen to lectures. Due to their reluctance, they prefer a new style of learning by which they can obtain knowledge and skill immediately and do it anywhere and anytime, without being limited in the schools. It is a fact that nowadays, universities and institutes have found that the new generation is generally more active than their parents. Young people, whose preference is achieving knowledge in the short term, can achieve their aim through online learning. 

Classic and Modern Methods in Microlearning

Although different organizations, including schools, universities, institutes, and companies, use the online method widely, they have not earned the desired result. It might be because online courses have followed a kind of imitation of traditional ones. 

However, living in an information society needs learning and education fast. This feature will enhance the quality of individual life, not only for students at universities and institutes but for adults who are out of any learning environment. Considering technology development and learning as an unstoppable trend shows how significant and influential microlearning is. Quick and easy access to new information via social media is the facility by which all people and not just the students at universities and institutes. So, everyone, from the young to adults, can complete knowledge gaps and keep learning materials.

Common Academic Social Networks

As the last word of the text, we have listed two of the most popular Academic Social Networks, and visiting them will help you get more about the topic. 

-ResearchGate: By creating a profile on the site, you can share papers and engage in scientific discussion by finding collaborators.

-Academia.edu: The site allows you to create a profile, upload your work, and choose your favorite areas, which will help you to find users with similar interests.

As you read through the text, we tried to cover the most related info to the Special social network of academic universities and institutes. We also prepared a comprehensive overview of microlearning details as one of the most viewed topics in this field.

However, the extent of the topic includes many facts, we only mentioned the most notable ones. However, if you have any questions or ideas about the presented content, you can share them with us by posting them in the comment section.