Exploring social collaborative e-learning in higher education: a study of two universities in Uganda

The emerging social collaborative technologies such as Facebook and Twitter are greatly influencing the evolution of e-learning in higher education. As these technologies become more easily available to students and lecturers, the approach to e-learning continues to evolve leading to a social collaborative e-learning (SoCeL) model. SoCeL involves social interactions and collaborations among students and lecturers in order to make it easy for them to construct and share knowledge. They exchange ideas and share their own digital products using these technologies to facilitate learning. Studies have however, shown that using social collaborative technologies in the learning process has not always had definite success. This may be attributed to lack of a framework to guide effective integration. The perceived absence of suitable frameworks is addressed in this work by developing frameworks to guide effective integration of SoCeL. This empirical study follows the requirements engineering process and uses a mixed methods approach involving case study and human-computer interaction ethnography to explore the environment in which social collaborative technologies are adopted in two universities in Uganda. Data were analysed using qualitative and quantitative approaches to establish requirements for SoCeL effective integration. The findings of this study are grouped in two broad areas: learning environment and adoption of social collaborative technologies. Based on these findings, the SoCeL environment framework and SoCeL adoption frameworks were developed. These provide the basis on which important recommendations are made. In conclusion, the thesis argues that SoCeL can be effectively integrated in higher education if the learning environment focuses on an integrated design. The design should bring together: informal learning, social networking and learning management