The role of the social learning portal in research and education

Significant changes in the way people collaborate and share information have paved the way for various study groups to be formed in different places and from different disciplines. A distributed learning environment not only involves professors and students within the university, but also extends to students from different universities. Today, many technologies are used in e-learning, from blogs to collaborative software, virtual classrooms, exchange forums, social networks and mobile technologies. One of the most important characteristics of web 2.0 technologies is that they emphasize sharing, participation, and collaboration. A well-designed learning environment helps enhance learning by making information and instructional content available and accessible anytime, anywhere.

Social learning is defined as a new paradigm of search, consumption, creation and contribution of information through collaborative commons. In this environment, the community creates and maintains multiple forms of content, and members of this community can find and consume content through an informal route. Collaborative learning environments have been shown to offer significantly higher content quality compared to formal learning environments. In addition, social learning creates a higher degree of engagement among participants, and members can mutually benefit from links, cross-talk, and comments. Much research has been done on the role of Web 2.0 services in supporting social interaction between students, teachers, and researchers.

In light of the benefits associated with the rapid advancement of information technology and the growing popularity of social networking sites, many websites are moving to adopt learning communities for easy knowledge sharing. Social learning websites are expanding and becoming more specialized; support the creation of private and public workspaces. Furthermore, those websites promote an active conversation between students, employees, teams, project clients and partners. ‘Livemocha’ is an online language community that is specialized for language learners and connects with native speakers for instructional help. ‘Bloomfire’ is an additional example that specializes in building an effective knowledge base for businesses through a collaborative environment; This website easily supports knowledge sharing and discussions surrounding business topics. ‘Google Docs’ is a Google service that allows people to share documents, spreadsheets and presentations with others. ‘Zoho’ supports the creation of collaborative portals for effective knowledge management. Users can create a centralized, searchable repository of information for easy access to the organization. Some websites offer communities to create their own social networking website (ie ‘socialgo’). They provide a set of features including profiles, messages, groups, events, chat, forums, blogs, and file uploads. To improve online collaboration between students, an online community is needed that can connect students from different universities and research centers.

This article highlights the importance of developing a Social Learning Portal between universities as a social learning application between academic institutions. This specialized community can be managed by information technology centers at universities. This community includes university students and professors, and accounts are awarded to students with valid university credentials. Information about student colleges and departments is public in this online community. The social learning portal can be divided into several communities; one community for each department, including all participating universities. Each community can be divided into sub-communities based on specialization, for example, the main community is computing, the sub-communities include computer networking, web development, and object-oriented programming. Also, joint communities can be formed between different departments, which can help different college students to share experiences and collaborate. For example, a research project may include students specializing in Computer Science and Bioinformatics. Students belonging to this community can easily share relevant and related content and learning resources with other students.

This social learning portal enhances scientific research; provides an online work structure for collaborative projects. Integrated into a user-friendly interface, the portal will offer research and publication guidelines for students. In addition, Social Learning Portal supports the formation of research groups (under the supervision of the departments involved) that combine students from different universities and diverse academic backgrounds. Instructors can add new groups according to their research interests, they can assign research participants to the group, and students from all universities can view the activities; When students join the group, they can see the group’s posts on their wall and can participate by writing comments. In addition, students can contact instructors from other universities. Universities may allocate weekly hours for instructors to be online and discuss problems posted by students (office hours).

To develop a successful social learning website, factors must be considered during design and development and a few questions must be asked:
1. What is the role of universities for the successful implementation of social learning?
2. The attitudes of teachers and students towards the use of social learning platforms and the effectiveness of existing platforms.
3. What are the possibilities and barriers to implementing new and effective features/technologies for social learning in universities?

By introducing a specialized social learning community, the quality of the educational process in universities will be improved, scientific research will be emphasized, and social networks will be a more effective and reliable tool.