Abstract:

This research aligns with an area of importance that has been identified by the education community on topics related to e-learning (King and Boyatt, 2014 and Scott, 2013) technology enhanced learning (Kirkwood and Price, 2013 and 2014, Manca and Ranieri, 2016c) and the challenges that tertiary institutions are facing when adopting innovation such as social media technologies (Ramble and Nel, 2015; Haines, 2015).

Various studies show that social media is being progressively used for educational purposes (Manca and Ranieri, 2016a and 2016b) and is proving to be both theoretically beneficial (Cao, et al., 2013) and practically effective (Haines, 2015 and Scott, 2013). From a pedagogical perspectives social media usage by academics within their teaching enables collaboration and collaborative learning (Haines, 2015), open communication online (Prescott, 2014), improved accessibility to learning materials (Scott, 2015), knowledge sharing, peer review and the ability to co-author content (Waycott et al., 2013). These and other pedagogical benefits such as authentic learning, social learning and a community of learning could potentially exist. However, studies investigating academics experiences of social media within their teaching have identified numerous frustrations related to technological and pedagogical issues (Manca & Ranieri, 2016a, 2016b).

The dominant focus of much of the educational literature addresses student usage, experience and perceptions (Evans, 2014, Junco, Elavsky & Heibergerger, 2013 and Junco, Heibergert & Loken, 2011). Of interest to this work is the lack of research investigating academics’ adoption challenges of social media (Cao, et al., 2013; Prescott, 2014; Sobaih. et al., 2016) or the challenges of continued academic adoption of social media within teaching (Shelton, 2017).

This systematic literature review will provide a comprehensive study of the research to date highlighting the challenges of adopting social media as an educational tool by academics in higher education. Articles will be selected according to the following criteria:
(1) studies that specifically investigates academics’ perceptions towards the adoption of social media in higher education
(2) studies that were published in peer-reviewed high-ranking journals
(3) studies published from 2013 to date. The review intends to develop a framework for the application of social media as an educational tool.

This review will be guided by three research questions:
• How is the adoption of social media as an educational tool by academics progressing?
• What adoption processes support social media adoption within teaching strategy?
• What challenges does the adopting of social media mean from an academic perspective?

Keywords:

Social media, higher education, technology adoption.