The University of Canberra does not have units taught specifically about social media.  Some 

units have modules about social media, but not the unit.

Leigh thought about setting up a unit specifically teaching about social media. He got 

feedback back on this.  Should universities be teaching about this when it is still 

emergent.

Leigh has posted about this a fair amount on Wikiversity.

Three questions:
Is unit idea the way to go?
Is it appropiate to teach about this topic?
What is the value of certification for this?

One person has tried to incorporate social media into lessons on marketing.

How do learners understand how to connect things up?

Some one taught contemporary issues in marketing.  She had an assignment and class on this 

topic.  One class was about social media.  The social media part was the favorite part of 

that class.

In the marketing class, students are shown good and bad examples of social media.  Students 

have an asisgnment to create a marketing campaign for a company.  This happens over the 

winter term.

Leigh suspects that most students are reading Wikipedia and consuming on YouTube.

Why wouldn't social media not be included in existing modules? Because existing modules are 

too condenscended as it is.

In an entrepeneur class, students said that they used Facebook to get their news.

University of Canberra to approach to social media is ad hoc.

Work places have to provide a safe work place and social media needs to be taken into 

account.

Social media has many purposes.

Should the university teach social media?  The sector is rightly or wrongly looking to the 

university to teach about that.  Academics are being turned to for answer by the media now 

than they were five years ago.

There are a lot of job opprtunities to do social media.  You could make a lot of money if 

trained right.  It undermines the ability to get academics to teach this.

Companies are realizing that you have to feed the beast.  Companies need employees who are 

able to keep things fresh.  Employeers want people who are facile in creation.

You don't want to be micromanaging a social media manager.

40% of sport first year students thought it would be good to have a class about social 

media.

Marketing, management and planning students last year had to undertake 1 out of 3 

promotional event creation.   Most of them used social media activities.

Social media is in the innovative practices section for ACT Health.

The University said that it needs to be specific to the department.  They cannot have a 

generic social media course open to all departments.

How do you be generic but help apply it to the specific area?

Social media can be taught as a how to but it needs to be integrated into a why you do 

these.  The internet is a form of promotion, distribution and interaction.  You need to 

learn how to manage.

TAFEs are now better addressing the reality of social media.

Need to do market analsysis: What are other Australian universities doing in terms of 

teaching classes about social media?  How does the University of Canberra compare?

Work integrated learning is important.