Deaf STEM Community Alliance Frequency of Posts Annette Tavernese Rochester Institute of Technology ERN Conference, Washington D.C. February 20th, 2015 Challenges Addressed by the Alliance ! ÿNeed to add more STEM graduates ! ÿBroaden participation of underrepresented groups in STEM, especially those with disabilities, and, in particular, those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing ! ÿCreate more cohesive cyber learning resources for students, faculty, and support service providers Barriers to Success in STEM Goals and Objectives Goal - Build a model virtual academic community that will increase graduation rates of D/HH STEM majors in postsecondary education in the long term Objectives - . 1) ÿDocument and disseminate a description of the process of creating the VAC to create a scalable model that could be adopted by others . 2) ÿIncrease GPAs and retention rates of D/HH students in STEM majors Socialization Hypotheses ! ÿH1: The posts that receive the most activity will have been posted on a Tuesday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. ! ÿH2: The posts that receive the most activity have been posted at 9:00am or 12:00 noon Eastern Time Hypotheses ! ÿH3: The posts with the most activity will have between three and ten Plus tis and/or comments ! ÿH4: Posting days and times will not be different for students, tutors, mentors, or staff. Why ! ÿImportance of providing access to mentors and adult role models for students with disabilities ! ÿStudents with disabilities has a higher percentages of unemployment rates and lower earnings ! ÿParticipate in academic opportunities / careers by interacting with others with similar interests ! ÿAdaptive technology allows anybody to participate online Research Studies ! ÿPosts valuable to the audience (Ford, 2014a) ! ÿMinimum: 3X per week ! ÿMaximum: 10x per week ! ÿQuality content vs. quantity ! ÿPost lifespan (Ford, 2014b) ! ÿ3 hours ! ÿFriday, Saturday, and Sunday ! ÿTuesday most successful day for viral content (Rowe, 2014) ! Share at 9:00am to 12:00 noon Methods ! Descriptive Statistics ! Collecting data ! February 2013-Feburary 2015 ! Record the day, time, and category ! Document who post, commented and plus 1 ! Analyzing data Findings ! H1 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Numbers of Posts Each Day NUMBER OF POSTS EACH DAY MON TUES WED THUR FRI SAT SUN Findings ! H2250 200 150 100 50 0 Post Time Frequency Time 8am to 12pm 1pm-3pm 4pm-7pm Findings ! H3 Post Title Total of Posts Activity Plus 1s Comments Meme Monday 24 23 66 Fall Schedule 12 13 8 MotionSavvy 10 31 83 New Student 10 63 9 Happy Friday 10 58 10 NASA 9 15 28 Newsletter 7 9 4 ImagineRIT 6 1 7 Caroline Solomon 6 24 11 Next Big Idea 5 10 7 3D-Printing 3 2 1 Findings ! H4 400 300 200 100 0 Community Involvement Total Posts total Student Tutor Mentor Staff Discussion ! ÿNeed to increase students and tutors involvement ! ÿStatistics ! ÿEven number of students, mentors, tutors and staff ! ÿSuccessful posting time ! 1pm-3pm ! Tuesdays Future Research Questions ! ÿWhat are the topics that encourage the most activity ! ÿAre there any other effective times for posting ! ÿAdditional analysis of posts that are the most interesting to students ! ÿDo different groups respond to different posts References ! ÿFord, M. (2014, July 28). How ojen should you post on Twitter and other social media networks. Red Website Design Blog. Retrieved 9/19/14 from http://blog.red-website-design.co.uk/ 2014/07/28/how-ojen-you-should-post-on-twitter-and-other- social-media-networks/ ! ÿFord, M. (2014, September 19). The ideal posting frequency for Twitter, Facebook, and Your Blog. Red Website Design Blog. Retrieved 9/19/14 from http://blog.red-website-design.co.uk/2014/09/19/the-ideal- posting-frequency-for-twitter-facebook-and-your-blog/ ! ÿRowe, J. (2014, May 30). The secret formula for the perfect viral share. Gryffin. Retrieved 9/19/14 from http://www.gryffin.com/secret-formula-perfect-viral-share- infographic Acknowledgements ! Faculty advisor ! ÿLisa Elliot ! ÿRochester Institute of Technology ! HRD-1127955