paper8

Towards the Choice of Better Social Media Platform for Knowledge Delivery: Exploratory Study in University of Ilorin

Ismaeel Abiodun Sikiru, Jegede Ayomide Faith

Keywords: Knowledge delivery, Social media platform, University of Ilorin, Zoom platform, Virtual learning, Covid-19

Abstract
Rising from the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, all schools in Nigeria were put under lock and key, like other countries.
This was to curtail the rapid spread of the virus, while the medical practitioners were in the laboratories. But due to
longer period of shutdown to formal education, most higher institutions instantaneously keyed-in to any available social
media platform (SMP) without understudying its efficiency and effectiveness for knowledge transfer. The consequences
of this include non-satisfactory knowledge transfer, most especially, by the learners; hence, aim of knowledge impact is
jeopardized. This study therefore is aimed to fill the gap to correct the existing damage, and prevent the likelihood of notafore-put-to-test syndrome in the subsequent choice of SMP. To achieve this, University of Ilorin is chosen as the territory
survey for being the most sought-after University for admission in Nigeria. Quantitative research methods were adopted,
being the most appropriate for this study in the literature. A total of 200 respondents participated voluntarily with the
adoption of Slovin’s formula for the sampling techniques; 156 students and 44 lecturers. The data collection process was
performed through a survey comprising demographic, dichotomous, multiple choice, and open-ended questionnaire to
capture detail information for the research work. Simple descriptive statistics was employed for the analysis. Our findings
reveal that out of the seventeen SMPs put to test, zoom platform ranks the most effective and efficient for the knowledge
delivery and acquisition by the lecturers and students of the University respectively, based on the designed principles.
Therefore, making Zoom platform the most preferred for e-learning. This study recommends that choice of satisfactory
SMP for knowledge delivery should be utmost concern of all institutions before embarking on virtual learning system.