Social media and students – When should universities step-in?

An Australian study of whether or not universities should censor students’ social media activity has thrown up some interesting findings. There was a resounding ‘no’ from students on whether universities should monitor student-run sites, and the main message for universities was not to take too seriously what students say on personal sites.

The Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, published by Taylor & Francis, has just published an article on 2011 research by John Rowe, academic registrar at Australia’s Curtin University in Perth, entitled “Student Use of Social Media: When should the university intervene?"

In it, Rowe summarises ethical problems faced by institutions trying to protect their staff, students and reputations.

On whether or not universities should actively monitor non-university student-run sites, students were sensitive: 72% saw student-run sites as ‘no-go’ zones compared with 54% of teaching staff and 42% of non-teaching staff.

Many were uncomfortable with the notion of an institution more actively entering the ‘private’ social spaces of students and monitoring student-run sites for comments.

Complex ethical issues

Difficult and complex ethical questions have arisen for universities since the escalation of social media use.

Comments posted on sites like Facebook, for example, are often ‘stream of consciousness’ thoughts, expressed with scant regard to their potential impact. Occasionally they constitute serious transgressions, including racism, homophobia, violent threats and admission of plagiarism.

But do universities have a duty to intervene for staff and student well being? And should freedom of speech be upheld?

Rowe’s study involved students as well as teachers, all of whom were shown various social media posts, with varying degrees of offensiveness, and who were asked to rank them from trivial to serious, as well as decide whether or not institutions should intervene.

Given that many students would regard their Facebook pages and Facebook groups as their own private space, a prime goal of the project was to establish appropriate limits for university interference in these matters.

Another was to develop a categorisation model for dealing with inappropriate or irresponsible comments that had been detected or reported.

Unexpected results

“A few results surprised me,” Rowe told University World News. “Based on some actual student behaviour issues with which I had dealt at Curtin (student comments on teaching staff), I thought it was possible academics might be particularly sensitive to criticism (more so than other staff).

“However, I found that in general, teaching staff were really no more sensitive than non-teaching staff. The only issue on which teaching staff displayed a noticeably higher level of sensitivity than non-teaching staff was in relation to racist comments about other students or staff.

“I also found it interesting and a bit surprising that non-teaching staff (that is, administrative staff) were more inclined to think it was appropriate to intrude into student personal spaces – private Facebook sites, student-run Facebook groups etc – via active monitoring and so on than teaching staff.

“Many of the teaching staff who responded seemed very pragmatic about the issues.”

Rowe said for earlier generations, criticising teachers and ridiculing their mannerisms or appearance was commonplace. But the comments were spoken, not written, or passed between students via handwritten notes in class or scratched into wooden desktops or the back of toilet doors.

The likelihood of the subject of the comment actually seeing it was small and even if it were seen or brought to that person’s attention, the chances of linking the comment to a particular student were slim. Also, schools or universities would often immediately remove the offending comments, so they had limited distribution and life.

The internet had changed this, he said.

Many younger people seemed quite prepared to post potentially questionable comments under their own names, perhaps not realising these posts would not be confined to just their friends. Even where the original posting might be able to be deleted, it might already have been copied or further distributed.

Foul language no problem

Added Rowe: “There was a high degree of commonality between students and staff on what constitutes the no-go zone of ‘unacceptable’ comment on social media. Students are not particularly concerned about use of foul language, but they seem very clear in their views on what is ‘OK’ and what is ‘unacceptable’.

“Racist, sexist or homophobic comments are in this latter category. Students also see threats of violence and admissions of cheating as unacceptable. Their views are very similar to those of staff on these matters.”

In students’ opinion, while they recognised that certain types of comments posted on student-run forums might warrant intervention and action by a university – particularly threats of violence, racist and sexist comments, admissions of cheating or offers to cheat on academic work – they also believed these sites were private spaces and not the domain of universities.

They felt uncomfortable about universities entering these spaces and actively monitoring them for what institutions might perceive as ‘inappropriate comments’: this was regarded as an invasion of privacy.

Yet with particularly offensive or inappropriate posts, both staff and students were in agreement: the answer was clearly ‘yes’.

However, while both groups felt it was warranted for universities to take action with these types of posts, there was also a view that responsibility for taking action could equally be left with the police or with service providers.

Take-home message

Rowe said the main message for universities was that they shouldn’t take too seriously what students say on personal sites – private Facebook or student-run Facebook sites.

“A lot of what is said on personal sites (non-university sites) is deliberately and knowingly provocative and aimed at an audience. My key finding is that it would be inadvisable for universities to actively monitor these sorts of sites for negative comments.

“Institutions can react if a complaint is made (and in some cases, should react), but they should not actively seek out these types of comments to suppress or react to them. Many students would feel very uncomfortable if they knew universities were actively monitoring such sites. Of course, comments on ‘official’ university sites are another matter.”

When asked if he thought there were likely to be any obvious changes to these issues over the next few years, he said: “I don’t think so. I think the key findings will still apply – although of course it will be very interesting to test this!

“In three years’ time, social media will be even more pervasive and, in my opinion, being used a lot more by universities in a mainstream way to communicate with students and even deliver learning experiences.

“However, I still think students will want to have a clear separation between ‘their’ spaces and ‘university’ spaces, and will use each set of social media accordingly.

“On that basis, I think my findings regarding ‘staying out of their space etc’ will still be valid and I think a lot of the other findings will probably still remain applicable as well.”