Communication Arts and Sciences students test new Facebook application

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Facebook.com could double as a study tool this spring for select students in MSU’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences.

The college will be among the first schools in the U.S. to test a new application that will allow students to find, “friend” and contact classmates to arrange study groups. Students enrolled in participating courses will be given the option to join.

The application, which will launch Jan. 19, is called “Schools” and will use information from the registrar to share student names, e-mail addresses and schedules. By clicking on a class, a student will see who else is enrolled in it, said Charles Steinfield, chair of the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media.

The application will be similar to the course roster provided on Angel, but will allow students to easily connect with classmates, he said.

“I think it’s going to be a good thing because students are on Facebook a whole lot more than they’re on Angel,” Steinfield said. “Angel doesn’t have things that would make it easier to approach someone. Maybe you both come from the same hometown and you didn’t even know it. … All of those little ice breakers.”

The program was created by a third party called Inigral, whose programmers are working with MSU to provide the application.

“They thought there was a huge opportunity to use Facebook for something besides poking and status updating,” researcher and assistant professor Cliff Lampe said. “We all use Facebook every 15 minutes anyway, might as well bundle our classwork into it.”

The program will be closely watched by researchers, and if successful, it could be extended to other MSU colleges next fall, Lampe said.

“As long as nothing catastrophic happens — as in no one uses it, someone uses it for cheating ­— we’ll roll it out to other colleges,” he said.

Research by MSU professors has shown that about 96 percent of MSU students use Facebook and at a rate of about 82 minutes a day, Lampe said. Students in 2006 used Facebook for about 28 minutes a day, so they’re Facebooking more and more, he added.

“People do check their Facebooks a lot and if they can somehow take advantage of that to study, I think (students) would try it,” zoology senior John Scaranucci said. “I can see how it would help.”

But student opinions varied; some were more hesitant to commend the application.

“Angel sucks all the time and breaks down, but (the Facebook application) seems slightly intrusive,” arts and humanities sophomore Erin Degroote said.

Students will have the option to add the application, but some, such as Degroote, expressed discomfort at the idea of friendship and study requests from unknown classmates.

“I wouldn’t want someone to walk up to me in class and be like ‘Oh, I saw you like picnics. I like picnics. Let’s study,’” arts and humanities sophomore Jessica Johnson said. “If I don’t know you, I’m not going to be your friend on Facebook. It depends on your comfort level with adding friends you don’t know.”

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