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Title

Leveraging emerging web technologies for community engagement project success in higher education

Author(s)

Tan, Felix Ter Chian;  Stockdale, Rosemary;  Vasa, Rajesh

Abstract

The widespread availability of Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook and Twitter has led to the adoption in a number of community engagement projects. Unfortunately, the breath and depth of these web technologies leads to a disjointed and incoherent adoption. In light of the above, there is a need for a model to structure its planning and execution. In this article, we present a model to assist community engagement projects. The model comprises of four crucial dimensions: functional quality, degree of psychological attachment, hedonic attitude of members and amount of social relationships. We discuss how each dimension can leverage on Web 2.0 technology capabilities in the context of uniS—the Information and Communications Faculty in a leading Australian University. The emphasis on community engagement follows for one, strategic recommendations proposed through Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) reviews. Given this, we discuss two specific initiatives currently in place at UniS that attempts to improve community engagement. The implications of this article are twofold. For educators, it recommends a set of considerations for establishing and designing community engagement programs and initiatives for higher education. For managers, it proposes a tool for systematically evaluating engagement success of initiatives within a community of practice.

Publication type

Conference paper

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology

Source

Proceedings of 'ICT and sustainable service development', the 19th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2011), Helsinki, Finland, 09-11 June 2011, paper no. 207

Publication year

2011

FOR Code(s)

0806 Information Systems

Keyword(s)

Community engagement;  Emerging web technologies;  Higher education;  ICT;  Project success;  Web 2.0

Publisher

Association for Information Systems

Publisher URL

http://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2011/207/

Copyright

Copyright © 2011 The authors. The published version of the paper is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.

Full text

Peer reviewed