Social networking in an academic conference context: insights from a case study

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conference-based online social network (OSN) for academics’ knowledge sharing and collaboration around and beyond a conference, while exploring the entanglement of the social and technical aspects of the system.

Following an exploratory study, an OSN prototype was developed and implemented in ECIS 2014. The usage of the OSN platform was monitored and in-depth interviews were conducted with seven of its active users.

Academic researchers have positive attitudes toward using conference-based OSN. However, there is a gap between academics’ perceptions and their actual behavior. Several barriers for engagement were identified, leading to technical and social recommendations, including the following needs: integrating the OSN platform with other conference information systems; addressing privacy concerns; allowing on-going collaboration; increasing OSN vitality; using the wisdom of the crowd; and promotion and its timing.

The case study highlighted existing benefits, and identified potential future benefits from implementing a conference-based OSN. Future research is required to generalize the findings and evaluate the proposed strategies for enhancing user engagement.

This study revealed the set of considerations that should be taken upon launching a new academic OSN, which are beyond the technical issues per se.

The paper presents the expected benefits from, and existing barriers to using a conference-based OSN, and suggests recommendations for encouraging academics to engage in such OSN, in order to enhance long-term social interactions, knowledge sharing and collaboration among conference participants.

This is a first study to examine a conference-based OSN.