Challenges and opportunities speci c to social media use
Challenges. Technical challenges in
the use of social media were reported
by six (43%) of the included studies.
For example, signing all students up to participate in a course blog was more time-consuming than expected.27 Another study noted that students initially had trouble posting due to a problem with security settings, but this issue was easily corrected.33 Faculty also encountered technical dif culties in facilitating online discussions.36
Variable levels of learner participation were reported as a challenge in six (43%) of the studies. For example, some groups
of students were more active than others on a course wiki, and some students only read others’ posts without contributing their own.31 In another study, 29.0%
of students reported that they did not read other students’ posts, and 40.6% indicated that they lost interest in the online component during the course.29
None of the studies reported any adverse events (e.g., breaches of professionalism, compromised patient privacy) during the interventions. Four studies (29%) mentioned specific measures that
were considered during design and implementation to address potential privacy concerns, such as including security settings on course blogs to avoid student posts being accessible by anyone outside the course.27,36
Demands on time were also cited as a possible challenge in three (21%) of the studies. Students participating in online PBL groups spent more time on clinical reasoning cases than did students in in-person PBL discussion groups.29 Blog facilitation required more faculty time than did traditional discussion groups, but facilitators reported that this time was well spent and that sharing comments added value to the assignments.36 In contrast, one study found that moving from traditional to virtual microscopy saved faculty time and shortened laboratory sessions.