Social networking within institutions

 

Social networking is extremely well liked amongst students and pupils. The success of international platforms like Facebook, Myspace or Youtube are only some of the most well known examples of Web 2.0. networking applications. In Germany the platform Studivz is extremely successful.

What are the advantage for an institution to make its own social networking platform available? While learning platforms differentiate between user roles for instructors and learners, social networking and community platforms focus on other areas. Each participant within a social networking or community platform is an author and consumer at the same time. There is no one editor, who is responsible for inserting specific contents. The community itself creates, administers and evaluates the contents.

A community can supply a genuine increase in value for the institution as well as their students, both in the private and academic range:

 

• Simple unforced contact to fellow students
• Independent organization of learning or leisure's groups
• Improved identification within the institution
• Comfortable communication options

 

The community platform Dolphin from boonex has recently been made available as open source software. Boonex praises the package as one of the best world-wide solutions for communities, which unites the functionality of Youtube, Myspace and Flickr.

Apart from the administration of pictures, videos, blogs, forums, groups and even an advertisement area. Dolphin creates a central starting point for the assessment of all content segments. The community itself decides on the success and popularity of the online content.

If you would like more information regarding Dolphin, then please visit the Boonex website: www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/

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