The use of online tools in education has led to significant advancements in the field, giving rise to a specialized area of research. This has provided higher education institutions with increased opportunities to engage with their surroundings. One such avenue is the utilization of social media, which aims to enhance and streamline the educational process. The objective of this study is to comprehensively examine the research on the use of social media in higher education. This examination includes analysing publication findings, co-authorship patterns among authors and countries, frequency of author keywords, top institutions, and influential authors. By conducting a bibliometric analysis of 250 journal articles published between 2018 and 2022, using data from the Scopus database via the biblioshiny platform, this research has identified the leading countries in terms of publication output in this field, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. The term "social media in education" is gaining popularity as it aligns with the emerging global trends in online learning. The findings of this study can contribute to the expansion of collaborative networks and the exchange of global perspectives in teaching, learning, and research development.
Alamri, M. M., Almaiah, M. A., & Al-Rahmi, W. M. (2020). Social media applications affecting students’ academic performance: A model developed for sustainability in higher education. Sustainability, 12(16). https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166471
Al-Hamad, N., Salem, H., & Al-Omari, F. (2022). Students’ perception of employing social media in the educational process in the light of education 4.0 requirements. Journal on Efficiency and Responsibility in Education and Science, 15(2), 82–93. https://doi.org/10.7160/eriesj.2022.150203
Alzain, Z., Alfayez, A., Alsalman, D., Alanezi, F., Hariri, B., Al-Rayes, S., Alhodaib, H., & Alanzi, T. (2021). The role of social media in the training and continuing education of healthcare professionals in Eastern Saudi Arabia. Informatics in Medicine Unlocked, 24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.imu.2021.100587
Bagarukayo, E. (2018). Social media use to transfer knowledge into practice and aid interaction in higher education. In International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT), 14(2).
Breines, M. R., Madge, C., & Dalu, M. T. B. (2020). Social media among African students: Recentring typologies of non-use. Digital Geography and Society, 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2020.100006\
Brika, S. K. M., Algamdi, A., Chergui, K., Musa, A. A., & Zouaghi, R. (2021). Quality of higher education: A bibliometric review study. Frontiers in Education, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.666087
Cabrera, L. F., Ferrada, P., Mayol, J., Mendoza, A. C., Herrera, G., Pedraza, M., & Sanchez, S. (2020). Impact of social media on the continuous education of the general surgeon, a new experience, @Cirbosque: A Latin American example. Surgery (United States), 167(6), 890–894. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2020.03.008
Faeq, Z. S., Abdalla, B. A., Ali, A. S., & Tofiq, K. R. (2018). Exploiting facebook for educational purposes in iraqi universities. Proceedings - 2018 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence, CSCI 2018, 618–624. https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCI46756.2018.00124
Fuchs, K. (2022a). An exploratory interview study about student perceptions of using social media to facilitate their undergraduate studies. Frontiers in Education, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.834391
Gao, Y., Wong, S. L., Mas, M. N., & Noordin, N. (2022). A bibliometric analysis of online faculty professional development in higher education. In Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 17(1). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41039-022-00196-w
Ghani, N. A., Teo, P. C., Ho, T. C. F., Choo, L. S., Kelana, B. W. Y., Adam, S., & Ramliy, M. K. (2022). Bibliometric analysis of global research trends on higher education internationalization using Scopus database: Towards sustainability of higher education institutions. Sustainability, 14(14). https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148810
Hamadi, M., El-Den, J., Azam, S., & Sriratanaviriyakul, N. (2022). Integrating social media as cooperative learning tool in higher education classrooms: An empirical study. Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences, 34(6), 3722–3731. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksuci.2020.12.007
Hamadi, M., El-Den, J., Sriratanaviriyakul, N. C., & Azam, S. (2021). A social media adoption framework as pedagogical instruments in higher education classrooms. E-Learning and Digital Media, 18(1), 55–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753020950869
Alia, H. A. A. (2022). Effect of using social communication in education during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 12(7), 658–662. https://doi.org/10.18178/ijiet.2022.12.7.1667
Kotula, N., Kaczmarek-Ciesielska, D., & Mazurek, G. (2021). Social media e-leadership practices during the CoVID-19 pandemic in higher education. Procedia Computer Science, 192, 4741–4750. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2021.09.252
Elameer, S. A., & Mansur, N. (2017). Using the social media in Iraqi higher education. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.27486.33607
Hamdi, S. (2022a). Challenges and opportunities of e-learning in secondary school in Iraq. International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.23918/ijsses.v9i3p305