The Chemistry of Facebook: Using Social Networking to Create an Online Community for the Organic Chemistry Laboratory

This article, originally published in Innovate No. 5, Issue 4,, discusses a strategy for the use of a Web 2.0 application, Facebook, for educational purposes. Instead of using the intercampus web platform WebCT, the authors tested a course-related Facebook group as an alternative virtual environment through which students could communicate and interact.

In the Iowa State University (ISU) chemistry programme, a low level of student participation inside and outside introductory chemistry laboratory courses was the cause for concern that prompted the experimental shift to Facebook. "This study took place during Fall 2007 and involved 128 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory organic chemistry laboratory for non-chemistry majors. During the first meeting for each laboratory section, all students were given an invitation to join the Facebook group Chemistry 231L. The group was promoted as a community where students could discuss questions with one another as well as with... the laboratory instructor; the teaching assistants; and the project librarian. Furthermore, the group was to serve as a place where students could compare results of their work with each other in order to identify trends in their data and to generate more precise results. By the end of the term, 52 students (about 41%) had joined the Facebook group."

The article compares the use of the WebCT Forum with the Facebook group. WebCT had 17 posts, mostly within the first month, while the group site on Facebook had a total of 67 posts to the discussion board. The WebCT site had an average user time of the discussion board feature of 58 seconds, with one or two comments per topic, while Facebook topics sometimes generated 10 responses. Certain features appeared to make information on Facebook more "accessible". They are described as: "One of the more beneficial features of Facebook proved to be users' ability to upload photos to complement associated text ....This function allowed anyone in the group to respond to a comment, explanation, or observation with relevant diagrams, figures, or other graphics. The instructor used this function to draw chemical structures or step-by-step reaction mechanisms and to post spectral data that could be referenced while discussing questions that had been posted. In addition, the Post Item feature allowed any group member to post Internet links to any potentially interesting or relevant Web site."

The authors suggest that their comparison shows more engagement of those students willing to use Facebook (though they point out that 59% of students did not engage), more complex patterns of engagement than the WebCT Forum, and more frequent communication when students needed assistance on chemistry problems. They speculated that ease of use and ready access (students accessing Facebook for non-academic purposes could easily check the group page) accounted for the frequency of use. "At the very least, the data suggest that students will use Facebook as an alternate mode of communication, particularly when deadlines approach". The authors conclude with a recommendation for further research.