"What and how do we learn from LinkedIn forums?" An exploratory investigation

This study examines several academic and professional LinkedIn forums, and using a grounded theory perspective, observes three key lifelong learning interactions for participants—a) problem solving through shared learning and helping processes,” b) a technical features learning center for learning new interfaces and features, and c) social networking. These three interactions offer a preliminary understanding of the potential for LinkedIn forums as a lifelong learning space, and an innovation space where weak ties and transactive memory systems have the potential to affect multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research practices, as well as create economic value for higher education by connecting active researchers to industry and other researchers. Index Terms – Social Media Forums – Learning Experience – Constructed Identity Branding