In social networks, including the popular Facebook, individuals create their own profiles and then allow access to friends or individuals with similar interests.  The initial opening point of such networks is thus often the individual and his or her profile.  Alternatively, organizations can set up a presence on a social network for their individual followers to access, making the entry point in this example the group site.

Potential uses of social networks in academia

In the classroom,

• social networking sites can aggregate information from a variety of Web 2.0 tools, providing a platform to synthesize and distribute the information by focus areas.
• students benefit from participating in the learning community and become life-long learners.  Students can “take up the ‘independence’ challenge and direct their own learning.”
• students can transition to the work place as professionals who are comfortable in organizations that depend on a virtual professional culture and better integrate in an environment of cross-cultural employees .

The success of these networks in learning environments depends on the social networks having a clear purpose, a structure that is supportive of that purpose, and integration with other course resources.

For university level faculty,

• social networking sites can assist with research agendas by
  
  • supporting an internal reference group
  • providing cross-collaboration opportunities
  • prospects for professional development

Creating a social network

Ning and WetPaint are two sites that allow anyone, including educators, to take the organizational role in setting up a group networking site for a community of shared interests.

• Ning
  • Relatively easy to use and to navigate
  • Allows you to limit viewing of the site to members.
  • The emphasis is upon facilitating discussion, not upon posting existing documents or images. These can be added by attaching them to a discussion posting.
  • Allows group members to set up and maintain their own profiles and pages.
  • Create your own zip file backups however the backups do not include posts of image or document files. Ning has an advantage here in that it posted the following on one of its forums:"We regularly back up all content on the platform. As such, we can provide a recent version of your network if it is accidentally deleted. We are also happy to do a one-time export of all content, if you are looking to leave the platform."
• Wetpaint
  • Relatively easy to use and to navigate
  • Does NOT allow you to limit viewing of the site to members
  • The emphasis is upon facilitating discussion, not upon posting existing documents or images. These can be added by attaching them to a discussion posting.
  • Allows group members to set up and maintain their own profiles and pages.
  • Create your own zip file backups. however the backups do not include posts of image or document files.