In WP3 of our project, we studied the patterns and implications of social media usage by higher education institutions in , both face-to-face and online teaching environments, namely for blended learning and e-learning. Initially two universities from each country were selected as cases, then we tried to reveal existing use of social media for teaching and research purposes, by conducting individual and focus group interviews with both instructors and students who already uses social media for academic purposes. After analyzing the data for each country we formed the comparison chart and to investigate the personal characteristics that instructors possess to make effective use of social media in their teaching, a teaching style inventory is developed and pilot tested. Hence, as a last step, a framework for social media strategy has been proposed based on (a) the literature results coming from WP1, (b) data gathered through universities, (c) cultural differences and (d) online teaching style survey results.
