Assessing the Success of University Social Networking Sites: Engineering Students' Perspective

In the higher education industry, web-based marketing has already been widely applied to service current students, as well as to attract new ones. All major universities in the world have incorporated their websites with social networking sites (SNSs), but it is likely that a significantly larger proportion has no clear knowledge of how successful their SNSs are. Accordingly, this study proposes an integrated model for evaluating the effectiveness of SNSs from an engineering student point of view. This model is based on the DeLone and McLean IS success theory coupled with the socio-demographic conditions perspective. The model was tested by using data collected from 638 engineering students. The results show that seven hypothesized relationships between seven success variables were significantly supported and two socio-demographic characteristics were significantly related to SNSs use. Our analysis showed that all three quality dimensions (i.e., information quality, system quality, service quality) had a positive impact on user satisfaction, and that only information quality had a significant effect on SNSs use. User satisfaction had positive and direct effects on SNSs use. Female students and self-funding students tend to use SNSs (i.e., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) more than male students and students with government scholarships. Therefore, gender and funding options should be considered as significant characteristics, since as control variables play significant role in the model. Engineering academic institutions can use the results of this research to assess the success of their SNSs implementation from their students' perspective.