Are we really engaging with LinkedIn to enhance students’ experience?

Social media has changed the way students learn and engage, its use in higher education has been argued to enhance the experiences of an already connected, collective, and creative study body. Many studies have considered the role social media plays as an out-of-class form of engagement for enhancing student experiences, these studies have mainly focused on Facebook and Twitter and predominantly from the United States. This study focuses on the United Kingdom students’ engagement on LinkedIn – a social networking site for business professionals that focuses on business connections and industry contacts for employers and working professionals. This study asks if students are really engaging with LinkedIn to enhance their experience or they are being forced to use. Respecting the facts that LinkedIn is not one of the social media students are more likely to use, issues observed from the analysis of results, which are expected to form basis of the discussion at the workshop are students’ effort in building their network, how they engage and struggle with content creation and their effort to make their profile stand out. Conclusion and future recommendations are provided, highlighting the choice of the students to engage and limited effort of the tutors