World Wide Web

Mathematics education

Pedagogy

Set (abstract data type)

Computer science

Educational technology

Psychology

Social media

Political science

Learning development

Sociology

Programming language

Social learning

Learning Management

Higher education

International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments

Academic online portals of Learning Management System (LMS) and social media have become a necessity in many higher education institutions to tie classroom meetings with learning resources. This study examines Malaysian university students' preferences of social media and LMS for academic purposes. A set of questionnaires was distributed to 269 students at four Malaysian universities. The results show that the students preferred both social media and e-learning for academic purposes, although their interest in social media was slightly higher than that of e-learning. The students had a higher regard for the academic content shared with them, than the design of a social media or e-learning platform. This suggests that both social media and e-learning are highly suitable to be used in academic environment to cater to students' need for formal-informal learning.

Malaysian University Students' Preferences of Social Media and LMS in Academia