Legal Aspects of the Use of Social Media in Higher Education
Amy Oakes Wren, J. D; John A. Vassar, Ph.D

Abstract
The use of social media in higher education has accelerated over the past years. Social media has been integrated into the academic classroom, campus, and everyday life. Along with increased social media usage in the university environment comes an increasing legal vulnerability. Higher educational institutions must be constantly vigilant of legal changes in the social media arena where both students and educational institutions have taken up legal action relating to online behavior. From an institutional perspective, universities need to be constantly developing policies in response to the changing legal environment as it relates to social media usage. This paper will address the major issues that will impact higher institutions by first examining the numerous laws at both the national and state level. Then, we will examine the best practices that relate to institutional polices which should be developed to govern social media usages on campuses around the country.

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