Human Information Interaction

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Background and Aim: The utilization of technology acceptance model is one of the ways for perceiving the users' attitudes, and this research utilizes it to investigate the factors affecting the students' encouragement to use the social network sites in order to determine which factors encourage the students to use the social network sites as a virtual learning network.

Methods: This research is applied in terms of objective and is among the structural equation modeling-partial least square studies. A questionnaire is designed based on conceptual model after investigating the relevant articles and extracting the possible components, and it is then distributed among students, and finally the analysis is done on collected questionnaires.

Results: The data analysis results indicate the indirect impact of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived complementarity, and the direct impact of attitude towards using the online social network sites and perceived enjoyment on the students' intention to use the social network sites.

Conclusion: The results of this research provide the useful insight for university authorities in local education industry to utilize the social network sites in order to enhance the students' learning effectiveness by perceiving these factors. This study identifies the variables which can affect the development of educational space and investigates the conducted studies on determinates of students' encouragement to use of social networks as e-learning networks, and finally provides an applied comprehensive model by combination of these collected factors. Furthermore, a new research can be conducted on factors affecting the users' encouragement to use social networks for education.

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Aim: The main purpose was to investigate the students’ information sharing behavior in social network sites with a qualitative approach.
Methodology: An applied research with qualitative approach - A Thematic Analysis method was used.  Population consisted of all the students at the Universities in South Khorasan Province affiliated with the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology who had a  minimum of six months experience in using one of the social network sites such as: Telegram, Instagram or WhatsApp.   A non-probability (non-random), and a snowball sampling procedure was used and 17 persons were interviewed. The semi-structured type of interview was incorporated.
Findings: Results showed that most students’ information sharing was done on Telegram and Instagram, respectively. Eighteen primary codes were provided by  students as motives for information sharing in social network sites. These primary codes were categorized into two main categories (personal and social motives) and seven subcategories. Among all the primary codes of the two main categories, the sub-category of “net-surfing and entertainment” had the highest occurrence. For the types of information shared on social network sites by student, 24 primary codes were obtained. These primary codes were categorized into eight sub-categories and two main categories (knowledge and entertaining information). Among the sub-categories identified, the most recurrently shared types of information were “literary-artistic information” and “scientific-educational information”.
Conclusion: For surfing and entertainments’ own good - information sharing on social network sites could lead to admittance of valuable information. If properly planned, it may function as a suitable platform (available to diverse strata of the society, especially the students, at the lowest possible cost) to attain the best possible practice especially in educational settings.