Full Project – Design and implementation of a mobile social networking application for academic and collaborative learning

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Social networking began when man started exist. Man is a social being that will always find it difficult to stay without relating to people around him.

Many years ago (20^th century and below), people connect and interact with each other through various means like using postal service, telegraph etc.

Following the evolution of internet in 1970’s, people use the internet to connect or communicate with each other especially in established organizations like US Military.

It was only in the last few decades that the use of social networking service became a global practice especially amongst young people (Horizon, 2009).

The nature at which these features are implemented may vary from site to site. Social networking started with Bulletin Board System (BBS), they were often run by hobbyists who carefully nurtured the social aspects and interest-specific nature of their projects which, more often than not in those early days of computers, was technology-related. An explorative interview study done by (Hrastinski and Aghaee 2012) was done to explore the students’ perspectives of the benefits and limitations of using social media to support their learning experience.

Findings revealed that almost all the students were frequent social media users. All of them are also users of the traditional learning management systems (LMS) and they An Analytical Study of the Use of Social Networks for Collaborative Learning in Higher Education 3 Copyright © 2017 MECS I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 2017, 2, 1-13 considered it as a complement to social media which they also think complements face to face education settings. They preferred social media for short communications and coordination while face to face meetings for longer communications such as group work. Furthermore, the benefits students reported of using social media varied from anywhere anytime connection, to efficiency and time saving. On the other hand, students reported a wide variety of limitations regarding the use of social media for education purposes.

1.2 BACKGROUD OF THE STUDY

A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. Most of the popular social network platforms we have in existence includes, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram etc.

These social networks has been of great benefit in both social interactions and collaborative learning, this platforms make available group chats where students can communicate and with collaborate with each other. This social platforms have rules put in place for the effective performance of the groups, and to protect the integrity of the information sent through the platform.

In an institution like Federal Polytechnic Nekede, were there are grate number of students admitted every year. The need for a dedicated system for academics and collaborative learning is needed. The social platforms used by the institution for such purpose have some restrictions. A social network like WhatsApp, which is popularly used by many departments in the Federal Polytechnic Nekede have restriction in the number of users allowed in each group. With these increased number of students admitted into the polytechnic, this platforms cannot accommodate all the students.

This social platforms is fully regulated by the company that own them, the school management have no way of fully regulating the platforms, and the data sent through the existing platform used by the polytechnic are save and stored in a remote database which they have no control. If this platforms loses their data in their server, the polytechnic automatically loses its data.

1.3 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The current system used in Federal Polytechnic, Owerri possesses the following challenges;

No means of means of setting up regulatory policies.
No better way of protecting data and maintaining data integrity.
Restrictions in the number of allowed users into the group.
Problem in user identification, in case of disciplinary action.

1.4 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The aim of this study is to design and develop mobile social networking application for academic and collaborative learning for Federal Polytechnic Nekede Owerri. In achieving this aim the following specific objectives will be accomplished through the design:

Developing a social platform fully regulated by the polytechnic.
To stop or eliminate the group number restriction policies.
To reduce the risk of data loses.
To develop a social network, that will enable the institution identify users, by allowing them register with their academic details.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

This new system when fully implemented enables Federal Polytechnic Nekede to have a social networking platform that will be fully regulated by the institution, remove the restrictions and risk associated with the existing system used by the institution for academics and collaborative learning.

Besides it will serve as a reference material for subsequent researchers in the same field or related topics.

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this project is to develop a mobile social networking application for academics and collaborative learning for Federal Polytechnic Nekede that will used to ease academic work and enhance collaborative learning.

All information pertaining the students and the data sent through the system will be stored in the database.

1.7 LIMITATION OF STUDY

During the development of this project work, different challenges were encountered. These include;

Time Frame: Limited time to carry out the research work, as the research was combined with other academic activities.
Insufficient power supply: the nature of power supply is discouraging, after a complete research, there is no enough power supply to compile the project work electronically and this lead to the delay of this work.
Lack of reference materials: The school library and the nearby public libraries lacked the necessary reference materials needed for the work.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

For easier understanding of unfamiliar words used in the research work, their meanings are as follows;

Administration: Is an aspect of running the organization by devising system which will run smoothly.

Social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors.

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