Some professors don’t let students see their Facebook pages. Some accept students’ invitations but don’t initiate them.
Peter Juvinall insists students friend him.
The Illinois State University instructor decided the best way to connect with a bunch of freshman business students in a short 8 a.m. class was to conduct much of the course where they are anyway—on Facebook.
So, as he explained during last week’s Educause conference and in a subsequent interview, he uses Facebook as a course-management system by instructing students to “friend” his personal page on the first day of class.
On the scale of pushing the privacy boundary, it doesn’t come close to the stuff some other professors have done—stuff like, oh, posing as a student to snoop on your online classes. But still: Is this going too far?
Mr. Juvinall, who teaches a required technology course, says the reaction is “99.9999 percent positive.” One or two students have had a problem with it, he says. He worked with them to explain how to adjust Facebook’s privacy settings, something many of his students have done to limit what he can see.
“I don’t browse their profiles anyway,” Mr. Juvinall says.
Beyond grading—that’s private—he does use the site for all outside-the-classroom functions. Students post questions on the “wall” of his profile. They submit assignments on their profiles. If they need help and they’re online at the same time he is, he lets them chat with him live. One took him up on the offer at midnight on a Saturday.
Teaching on Facebook works with one of Mr. Juvinall’s main messages: that students should think of their online presence as a digital resume. Employers have been known to ask alumni to check out the Facebook pages of job candidates, he points out, since some Facebook users allow anyone within their university’s network to view their profiles.
“I tell them, you need to assume anybody can read whatever you put out there at any time—forever,” Mr. Juvinall says.
There is an expiration date on what Mr. Juvinall can read, however. At the end of the semester, he “defriends” all his students.
11 Responses to Course Requirement: Friend Your Professor on Facebook
paullev - November 12, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Glad to see this happening. I’m Friends with many of my students, past and present, on Facebook. I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Facebook and other like media in http://newnewmediabook.com
alison1 - November 13, 2009 at 9:15 am
I have no issue with having contact with your students in diverse ways per se. For the most part, I would encourage it. However, by obliging students who are not signed up for Facebook to do so, you are forcing them to give up some of their privacy rights. Let’s not forget that Facebook (as well as other online social networks) collect and sell user information and make it difficult (if not impossible) to erase potentially damaging information posted by others. Would the professor or the University be liable if a student feels as though his/her right to privacy was infringed? It would be my advice to tread lightly when obliging anyone to sign up for any service over which the university does not have direct control.
derekbruff - November 13, 2009 at 10:06 am
I’m glad to hear that this instructor is experimenting with altnerate ways to connect with his students. However, I’m a little suspicious that 99% of his students are fine with it. What if a student were not fine with it? Would that student necessary push back on this? It may be that Mr. Juvinall isn’t hearing all the negative feedback.Here’s an alternate approach: Create a “fan page” for your course on Facebook. Then invite your students to become “fans” of that page. That means that anything you post to the page will show up in the students’ news feed when they login to Facebook. (I think that’s still the case with the new feed system.) It gives you all the functionality that Mr. Juvinall describes, without requiring students to “friend” you.I’ve tried this approach this semester, and it seems to work well. (Yes, my data is as anecdotal as Mr. Juvinall’s…) I still have my course blog, however, so students not on Facebook can keep up with the course there. And thanks to some tips from the ProfHacker site, I have my blog’s RSS feed piped into my Facebook course page, so I don’t have to update two sites, just the course blog.
ajhyman - November 13, 2009 at 10:12 am
I completely agree with Allison’s comment. I don’t believe you can ethically/legally force a student to subscribe to a service and give up any part of their privacy. Derek Bruff’s approach is better. Create linkages from social networks back to a site (LMS or blog) over which the institution has complete control of the data. Good article, BTW. AJ Hyman, Toronto http://blogs.med.utoronto.ca/hyman
ais23 - November 13, 2009 at 10:51 am
Plenty of professors “require” use of Blackboard, WebCT, or other school portal type pages–another page to log into (and remember another password), another setup to learn how to use. And most of them aren’t as user-friendly as Facebook, which most students are very familiar with anyway! I’d enjoy keeping it in one place.
ajhyman - November 13, 2009 at 12:03 pm
AIS23 – yes, FB may be more user-friendly, but when a school sets up Blackboard, the students’ personal information is used excusively by the school and not shared. It is protected by the ‘contractual’ agreement between the school and the student.You have already chosen to use FB for yourself, which means you’ve agreed to let FB have your data. But if another student doesn’t want to give FB access to their information, a professor shouldn’t force a student to share their information with FB. It’s almost like a professor forcing a student to join a political party, just to take their course.
tjoo1691 - November 13, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Metts (2003) reported that “Over half (52%) said the worst part of the online experience was poor communication. And half of those (26% of the total) said the problem was communicating with their instructors” (para 16).I applaud anyone who makes an effort to meet students needs. The key is “He worked with them to explain how to adjust Facebook’s privacy settings, something many of his students have done to limit what he can see.”
emmadw - November 13, 2009 at 3:05 pm
tjoo1691 said: “Metts (2003) reported that “Over half (52%) said the worst part of the online experience was poor communication. And half of those (26% of the total) said the problem was communicating with their instructors” (para 16).” I’ve not seen that report – but I could imagine that we’d get similar results in the UK. (In my experience, when students say they can’t contact lecturers, it’s generally because they don’t find you in your office [not when it's set office hours ... but when they actually want to see you!] and/ or email’s not answered in evenings/weekends etc. However, I’m reluctant to go down the *requiring* students to use Facebook – I’ve got an account & generally don’t accept student’s requests for friendship; however, I do like the idea of having a page & getting students to become a fan; but would only have that as an optional way of getting information. If they’re not happy, then that’s fine too. However, a better way I’d have thought would be to set up a blog etc., with RSS feed & teach the students how to subscribe to an RSS feed in Facebook – or their browser; embed it in the VLE; set up an auto feed of the RSS into twitter (even put it on your Uni’s Second Life Island). That means 1* updates for academics – but multiple ways of getting the information for your students. Everyone can get it in the format they’re happiest with & no-one has to sign up to a service they’re reluctant to use.
derekbruff - November 13, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I like emmadw’s approach of making an update in one place (say a blog) and having that information propagate throughout multiple online tools. One reason I went with a Facebook “fan page” is that I couldn’t figure out how to subscribe to an RSS feed from my Facebook account. If you know of a way to do so, I would be glad to hear about it. Setting up a fan page meant that my students could just “fan” the page, letting me worry about the RSS issue.
rbhickey - November 18, 2009 at 9:17 am
Just curious to know if the professor has concerns about the student’s intellectual property. The terms of use of FB states:”For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (“IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”).”Just a note of caution for faculty considering using FB for assignment submission!
cgarland - November 23, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Students and faculty that use Scholar360 LMS don’t have to worry about this. Scholar360 provides a secure social network for each client school, complete with blogs and RSS feeds. We believe this enables students the opportunity to network with their teachers and peers within a professional/academic environment (which Facebook is not), while preserving everyone’s right to privacy and the choice to network on public social networking sites, if desired. I think it is the best of both worlds.