Always-on!! A Quantitative Assessment of Higher Education Institutions' Activities on Facebook

Abstract

This study employs a sequence of quantitative analyses in order to assess to which extent Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) make use of their Facebook pages during a specific period and how it is reflected in their online activities and practices. A total number of 4148 posts is considered for 16 active HEIs during the 2019/2020 academic year in UAE. Frequencies per week, month, and time at which the HEIs posted messages have been analyzed. The longitudinal focus of this study will allow for assessing the posting timing trends and exploring patterns of activities of HEIs in terms of communication and engagement with the audience. Results indicate that the HEIs significantly differ in terms of posting activities on the Facebook platform. The most active institution posts 4 times more than the inactive ones. These institutions published posts primarily on weekdays -with little interest on weekends - between 12:00 and 6:00 PM with similar patterns over the 12 months. Additionally, the chi-Square test shows that there is a significant difference between HEIs timing posting in terms of the day, time, and month.