CAN SOCIAL NETWORKING KEEP STUDENTS IN SCHOOL? A PROPOSAL FOR AN IDEAL SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE FOR AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

ZENITH International Journal of Business Economics & Management Research________________ ISSN 2249- 8826

ZIJBEMR, Vol.3 (12), December (2013)

Online available at zenithresearch.org.in

231

CAN SOCIAL NETWORKING KEEP STUDENTS IN SCHOOL? A

PROPOSAL FOR AN IDEAL SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE FOR AN

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION.

AJITH SUNDARAM

B.TECH, MBA, MS (UK) ASST PROFESSOR,

SCMS SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT

______________________________________________________________________________

Introduction

Boyd and Ellison (2007) define social networks as Web-based services that allow individuals to

construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users

with whom they share a connection and view and traverse their list of connections and those

made by others within the system. i

Last summer, all schools found a steady decrease in the amount of students who have attending

the school. Author has done this study with the cooperation of the staff and students in RVS

institute of Management Studies. If this trend goes on it will be very difficult for the school to

run and will have to alter the timings.

Schools have been victim of this for many years and if this is going to continue schools will have

to less people every year.

To address this problem, schools build physical spaces new dorms with themes and clubs to

make sure new students get involved. Those strategies can help. But schools are now trying to

keep students coming back with a new twist on a familiar tool — social networking.

A School-Based Social networking Site. Schools now are coming up with new social software for the people to be more interactive and

have a much better co-operation. All the students who are a member and have created their own

profile can have the freedom of interacting.

Proposal for an Ideal Social networking application for an Educational Institution.

Here author has tried making a proposal for a new social networking tool which could be used

for business application. This is a desktop application which could be hosted on the internet and

all the people who have installed it on their personal computer can use it to get connected no

matter where they are.

Development Methodology

Phase I: Preproduction

In this phase a general understanding of the features of the website would be done. Also specify

the goals of the project with the main users who will be using the website. A site requirement

would be made based on priority.




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The project will be briefed and the development strategy would be made. Budget and schedules

are then made after the discussion with the programmers

Phase II: Production

A. Content

This phase includes the gathering the contents like the different images, video, audio, documents

and reports that that have to be included in the website. Development of the story board to give

the client a basic outline of how the site will be. A site map will also be developed and the client

has to sign it if accepted.

B. Design and construction

In this phase the template will be made and will have to be accepted by the client. Appropriate

color scheme will be finalized with the client and proper use of graphics, contents and layouts.

C. Testing and handover

The site will be subjected to Functional testing for technical issues, Security, Load and user

testing will be done

Phase III: Release

The site will go live and proper training will be given on how the site operates.

Phase IV: Maintenance

Maintenance of the site if necessary as per the request from the client.

Phase V: Evaluation

Evaluation on the working site showing where the project started, the project objectives

Site Map

Home

Profile

View Profile

Edit Profile

Contacts

My Contacts

Contacts from Outlook

Contacts from other SNS

Organiser

Add / Edit Contact

Mail

Compose Mail

All Mails

Mails from Outlook

Mails from Mailbox

Personal Messages from SNS

Sent Mail

Archived Mail

Notifications




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Friend Request

Message / Mail

Postings

Comments

Gallery

Photos

Video

Audio

Job

Find Job

Post a Job

Manage a Job

Job Recommendations

Jobs by category

Resume

Applications

Advance Search

Company

About us

Company History

Management, Investors and Partners

Press Release

Resource Centre

Contact us

FAQ

Customer Service

Advertisements and Business Solution

Advertisements

Create Advertisements

Manage Advertisements

Business Solutions

Business Account

Business Page

Create Page

Manage Page

Recourse Centre

Applications

Chat

Groups

Create Groups

Manage Groups

Communities

Create Community

Manage Community

Discussion Centre




234

Conference Hall

Account Settings

Settings

Networks

Gallery Settings

Notification Settings

Privacy Settings

Application Settings

Log off

Home

Home is the first page which registered users see. He will be having quite a lot of functionalities

on the home page. The user will have access to all the functionalities of the website from the

home page. A non linear mode of navigation is followed so that user can directly select which

ever functionality he wants.

A prototype of the home page will be as below.

On the left top you could see the company logo and then the banner of the company. This will be

made common for all the pages to have a consistency. The menu bar will have the entire

different menu’s that are discussed in the site map. The sub menus will be pulled down once you

keep the mouse on the top of it.

Now when are going to the functionalities that are present on the home screen you could see the

entire list of menu’s and the most important is the contacts and the calendar. The contacts will be

uploaded either by the user or it will be extracted from the mailbox or outlook of your computer.

By selecting the contact the user will have features by which he can have voice, video and text

chatting. Direct telephony is also integrated with the contacts. User could call one person directly

by clicking on the contact.

Calendar will get synchronized to the present SNS, Outlook and the mailboxes and will show the

upcoming events and meeting based on the priority in which user has set them before. You have

options by which new entry could be made to the calendar.

All kind of notifications and upcoming programs will be popped up on the home screen in their

respective places. This is highly customizable and user can change the position of anything

depending on his wish. All the network activities like comments and posting will be available in

the network activities place.




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Profile

This is the place where one could view and edit the profile information. While the profile is

created all the details for identification will be taken and if the user wishes to modify any of them

this could be done here.

Contacts

Here the user has the provisions by which he can see the contacts that are already in his SNS

along with the contacts from his outlook and other SNS. User can organise his contacts into

different groups as he wish and can add or edit any of the contacts. Separate pages would be

designed for each of the options.

Mail

When coming to a business environment email has to be very important as most of the people

use it to communicate. We have included features by which the entire emails from different

accounts could be seen under one and also they could be viewed in different accounts.

Notifications

The notifications keeps one always informed on the different notifications that are available to

him let that be a friend request, mail, message or any kind of postings or comments.

Gallery

Through the gallery the user will have options by which he can upload photos, videos and audio.

Gallery settings are there to give a controlled access to the people accessing it.

Job

This is an option which is allows the company to publish any job vacancies to the public. A user

can post a job and can manage the applications with the help of this.

Company

All the details about the company will be coming here. This will include the details about the

company, its history, the people who are in the management, the investors, the partners, various

press releases and so on.

Advertisements and Business Solutions

This is the option that is allowed for the people in the marketing department to create an

advertisement and to manage it. It will also help the user in creating and managing a business

page. It also includes the business solutions which is the previous steps that has been taken by

the company when they had a similar situation. This will really help the people in getting them

educated by knowing what was done before.

Applications

Applications include various IM services like chats. Groups and communities could be created

and managed in this. It also offers a discussion centre where the user can have discussion on a

selected topic via text based chat. The conference hall is one of the most important and

outstanding feature of this website as it allows multiple users to see each other and take part in a




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live conference online. This could also be used for training the people who are not in the

company site.

Account Settings

Various account settings like how to manage the contacts, how to manage the notifications, how

to manage the gallery settings can be found here.

Privacy Settings

This section includes all kind of privacy settings that is applicable for the website. It offers

settings who all can view the profile and what all each person can view.

Application settings

This includes the settings for the application like chat, groups, communities, discussion centre

and conference hall

Features of the application

When we are talking about an application which is mainly used for business applications we

have to have quite a lot of features that will help business run smoothly by better inter-

connecting employees and departments.

The main features of the application are the following.

Blogs

Forums

Links

Groups

Comment wall

Activity floor

Photos and Videos

There are a number of features that are available for the users and the administrator. Admin

features are not available for a common user.

An ordinary user can enjoy a number of features like,

Customizable Home page. Which means user have the freedom to add, remove or

rearrange any item. User can also add any HTML or media items.

SNS Connect. User can sign in to this and can have a look at what is happening in all the

SNS in which he is a member. All the contacts get automatically get synchronised to the

website.

Mailbox. User can send / receive private messages. Multiple accounts can be merged to a

single one. Proper notification is also provided for the incoming messages.

Voice and Video chat. User has access to the chat rooms where he can take part in both

voice and video chat.

Contact Importer. This allows the user to import all of his contacts to this website no

matter where they are. Let that be from outlook or from any other mailbox or SNS.

Classifieds and wiki. User can maintain his own classifieds and wiki wherein he can have

private blogs.

Some of the Admin features that are available are

Customisable Sidebar




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Customising Index

Plugins

Advertisement Management

Privacy settings

Introduction Screen

Some of the additional features are

Integration of chat rooms. These chat rooms should have features that will allow the user to

import the contacts from his personal chat engine let that be gmail or skype or anything else. The

chat room should have feature by which the user can have separate folder to view his contacts let

that be skype or gmail or anything else. So that the user can have a single window opened and

still he can interact with all of his contacts at the same time. The best example for this is fringii.

This is an application which runs on mobile phones and has features by which a user can

subscribe to his entire chat engine. This concept is implemented on the SNS.

Integration of emailiii

. There would be a small place where the user can have bird’s eye view on

the email. User would be able to have a look at the subject and the person who has sent him the

email. It will also alert the user on receiving a new emailiv. The same window will show all the

mails and will have a feature by which it will highlight and show the user from which mailbox

the email came. Hence the user will have options to configure more number of email accounts on

thisv. Once you click on the email tab emails could be read on the activity area.

Integration of Calendarvi. Any person who is into business need to keep a track of his schedules.

Hence he will have to properly maintain his calendar. When we have a SNS for business it

should have features by which it will automatically pull all the calendar entries and show them

on the site. Users can have the freedom of adding any other calendar upon his interest. The site

has to be made in such a way that it will accept the downloaded calendar file from the internet

and will add the entries automatically to the existing one. Say if a user wants to know the

national holidays or bank holidays he can download the same calendar from the internet and he

can upload it to the site. It will have features by which one user can sent meeting request or any

other calendar entries and the same will be added according to priority which is user defined.

Others users can have a look at a person’s calendar and can know if he is available on the day. If

the person is already booked for another meeting it will show as busy. There would be options by

which one user can share his calendar to another.

Location awarenessvii

. The site should automatically update the location of the user. If the user is

travelling and if he fails to update his location the site should have features by which it will

automatically sense the location and will update it on the profile. The other importance of

location awareness is if the user wants to search for something with in the locality he can do so

as the site knows where the user is at the moment. This will also help the users to understand and

know the likeminded people around him and can search for them or can start a conversation with

themviii

.

Mobile social networkingix. All the features that a user can enjoy in the website with his personal

computer should be made available to a person who wants to use a PDA or his smart phone.

Apps matching the working of the phone and which would make the users more easy to usex.

Administrator of the account can track down the details of the people who have visited the

particular site multiple times but have not made any postings or comments. These details can be

given to the marketing department and with careful marketing techniques being used company




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can make a call to those and can discuss on their interest and can take them through the different

purchasing options available.

Integration of a different social networking site into the present company sitexi xii

. This will help

the users quite a lot as they dont have to personally login to the other site to get the live feeds but

those live feeds will be readily available to them sitting on the current SNS. There is an option

by which a user can comment or take part on a discussion on a different SNS. Postings made on

a different social networking site will still be viewable on the current website. This will help

users work on multiple social networking sites at the same time looking into one window rather

than switching between windowsxiii

.

Integration of Microsoft office. The social networking tools should be able to open up any word

or excel files which another user shares. A user can still make use of features on the Microsoft

office sitting on the SNS. There is an option which allows a user to open a new word or excel

filexiv

.

Text, Audio and Video chat. The social network should allow the user to have both text and

video chat with multiple users at the same time. It would have features by which multiple people

can take part in a discussion. This will help the companies to do conferences as all the users can

see others and can have both texts, audio and video chat. This feature can also be used for

training as the trainer and the trainees need not be near. This feature will allow people across the

globe can take part in the training. The video chat would have features for sharing on screen so

that one user can show another on what is going on in his screenxv

.

Integration of Telephone. The site has feature by which it can pull the contacts details from the

computer say outlook or any mailbox and can call directly to another person’s phone. This has to

be done with the integration of local telephone department or any service providers and a fixed

call charges could be made for each call. For example gmail has come up with features by which

one can directly call to another person’s phone numberxvi

.

Discussion Centre. Discussion centre is one of the most important features of this application.

This allows the user to take part on a discussion on a particular topic and all can have their views

and comments on the common window which will be viewable to all the people participating in

the discussion. There are also options by which one can have a private chat with another with or

without other knowledge during the common discussion. Users will have the feeling that they are

participating in a common chat room where all can have their comments.

Conference Hall. This is another feature of the application which keeps it outstanding from the

other. With the help of this more than one person can take part in a web conference by seeing

each other with the help of their webcam. All the users will be able to see each other and convey

their ideas. Users need not be in the same physical location to take part in this conference.

Anyone who is registered and has an internet can take part in this discussion. This will really

help the people in training purpose for those who are not in office all the time and need to travel.

The trainer can demonstrate things in a class room and all the people who participate in the

training can take part in the training no matter where they are in.

Friendlier Home Screen. It has a much friendlier home screen. The home page is highly

customisable. User can decide on the features that have to appear on the home page. Only the

logo, banner and the menu bar will remain and all the other functions and features can be moved,

hidden or re arranged based on the users wish. User has the freedom to customise the looks of

the different things that appear on the screen. The background image and the colour website can

also be changed according to a users wish.




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Key Features of the Application

1. One sentence tagline, which makes the purpose of the company clear to all those who

access the site very first time.

2. Designing of title in a way that it will make it more searchable in search engine

3. All corporate information’s about the company has been made to a single area.

4. More importance on high priority task so that the user does not have to look for it

5. Search Box helping users find what they are looking for

6. Link names representing what if stands for

7. Meaningful graphics

8. Logo and banner in all page to have a consistent look

Conclusion

New and new technologies are coming up every day and people have chosen this as the place

where they need to do business for their maximum profit. These days all professionals are using

these technologies to run business.

People are very social; they use to speak about the companies, its products and services. But

before the introduction of SNS there wasn’t a proper method by which they could communicate

each other. SNS has given a platform for the same. The main advantage of social media is that

one consumer can interact with another consumer about companies and brands. This has reduced

the influence of an advertisement on the consumers as they have started thinking about the

product they wanted to own and they have now become self sufficient to do a research on what

they need to own. Companies have to develop a platform so that its customers can come together

and start talking about the company and its products or services. This is where SNS has it

importance. There isn’t a better platform for the customers to interact and for the same reason

most of the companies are now coming up with their own SNS.

Almost all the companies do support social networking sites as this is becoming more and more

popular among employees and this has resulted in a more co-operative and collaborative working

environment. At the same time there are other companies which ban social networking sites

taking into account their security features. It’s true that as the social networking sites becoming

more and more popular companies need to have an extra care on the security aspects.

Gone are those days when we could have internet only for a couple of things but in this modern

world there are no boundaries for what could happen through internet. In the due course business

techniques will change and will get adapted to grow along with the advancements in internet and

social networking.




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Documents

CAN SOCIAL NETWORKING KEEP STUDENTS IN SCHOOL? A PROPOSAL FOR AN IDEAL SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE FOR AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION