Exploring the usage of social media in extant campus sustainability assessment frameworks for sustainable campus development
International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education
ISSN: 1467-6370
Article publication date: 19 July 2021
Issue publication date: 6 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
As one of the buzzwords in the present age with considerable impacts in tertiary institutions, social media use in online teaching, learning and information dissemination have been extensively discussed in extant literature. This paper aims to explore the existing campus sustainability appraisal (CSA) tools to identify the length at which social media has been used, especially in environmental sustainability indicators’ selection and empirical verification.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology is mainly based on a desktop study involving comprehensive review and content analysis of existing CSA tools’ documents. Webpage content analysis of selected sustainability monitoring and tracking system in higher education institutions was also conducted.
Findings
The tools' content analysis reveals insufficient utilization of social media data and platforms in campus sustainability environmental-dimension indicators selection. To bridge this identified research gap, social media user-generated content for appraising the campus-wide environmental sustainability indicators preference in tertiary institutions was proposed.
Practical implications
The adoption and modification of this study’s proposed approach by tertiary institutions, especially in sub-Saharan African countries, could help address most campus-wide environmental challenges raised, commented on and discussed on social media.
Originality/value
This study contributes to knowledge gaps by revealing the extent of social media utilization in extant tools. With the expanding utilization of different social media platforms by various tertiary institutions worldwide, their administrators' responsibility is to put these social media data into fair use.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD) providing part of the academic funding for the authors. The Department of Building and Real Estate, PolyU is also acknowledged for providing a research environment to the corresponding author. The corresponding author is a recipient of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University International Postgraduate Scholarship (IPS).
Citation
Adenle, Y.A., Abdul-Rahman, M. and Soyinka, O.A. (2022), "Exploring the usage of social media in extant campus sustainability assessment frameworks for sustainable campus development", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 135-158. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-03-2021-0091
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited