With the rapid development of information communication technology, social media has become a necessary part of people’s daily life. Recently, many music teachers have applied social media to augment their classes and enhance their teaching. This article explores the use of social media for musical instrument education, with a focus on the violin and piano. A qualitative semi-structured interview was conducted with eight music teachers from music centers and studios. Our participants revealed that social media creates a virtual environment to extend (but not to replace) face-to-face instruction, which facilities knowledge sharing, arouses students’ interest, and supports communication. For pedagogy, social media helps students improve musical instrument playing techniques (e.g., posture, fingering, and rhythm) and musical styles. Drawbacks of applying social media are mainly the quality of content, difficulties in differentiating subtle differences (e.g., intonation), and inadequate talent of some students. Therefore, teachers need to pay attention to these issues and use social media to develop a better educating environment for individual learners.

Purpose Existing studies reflect that traditional teaching–learning relationships between supervisors and graduate students have become disjointed with actuality seriously. In particular, there are practical difficulties in handling many students from coursework-based postgraduate degrees under current university curricula. Therefore, this study aims to explore the relationship between research supervisors and graduate students on social media, which is popular among students. Design/methodology/approach This study surveyed 109 graduate students from two majors (population around 100 each) of a university in Hong Kong to explore their information usage for research on social media, related attitudes and their perceived supervisor relationships. The differences between the two majors were also compared. Findings The authors’ findings indicated that graduate students were active on social media, and social media has successfully provided effective alternate ways for students to communicate with their research supervisors. Social media could improve relationships between supervisors and research students and among fellow students. Besides education purposes, students also discussed their personal affairs on social media with supervisors, demonstrating enhanced trusted relationships. Graduate students also showed confidence in the further application of social media in higher education. Some differences between respondents from the two programs were also found in terms of communication contents, strengths, personal preferences and purposes for using social media. Originality/value Scant studies focus on the relationship between supervisors and graduate students under the current social media environment, especially for students from coursework-based postgraduate degrees. At a deeper level, for the widespread use of social media in the information age, this study explores the specific changes brought about by social media. Therefore, this study is of great theoretical and practical value to graduate education under the current social media environment.

PurposeSocial networks provide convenient communication and connection among people, and they have become essential in college students' lives. However, problems also come along with increasing concern about trust and privacy issues. This research attempts to investigate the trust and privacy perceptions of university students when using social networks for learning purposes.Design/methodology/approachThis paper investigated the differences in trust and privacy perceptions between undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) students through an online survey with 96 subjects in Hong Kong. The authors used the Mann–Whitney U test to compare the differences between the responses provided by UG and PG subjects.FindingsThe authors found that both PG and UG students were generally satisfied with the use of social networking sites (SNSs) for learning. However, PG subjects used SNSs more for learning and were more willing to exchange with classmates than UG and PG perceived higher value of SNSs than UG students. The authors also found a relative lack of privacy awareness of UG students.Practical implicationsBased on the study’s findings, the authors made some recommendations about the application of SNSs for learning purposes. The authors also suggest universities provide more guidance and training to students on the privacy issues of SNSs.Originality/valueEven though some previous studies have focused on studying privacy and trust issues on SNSs, studies that aim at university students in the context of Asia–Pacific are rather limited, especially university students' own trust and privacy perceptions on using SNSs for learning purposes.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-02-2020-0042

PurposeA rising trend has been observed to minimize extraneous cognitive load when reading by enhancing secondary knowledge through technology. For the readers to comprehend information more efficiently in their cognitive architecture, instructional procedures, which are secondary knowledge, should be aligned with the modern technology environment. With continual, rapid technological advances in modern society, people have changed their news reading habits after using mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and e-readers.Design/methodology/approachThis research employed a quantitative survey to compare the changes in the news reading habits of the undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) students in the Library and Information Management program of a university in Hong Kong after using mobile devices to read electronic news. A total of 102 responses were collected, which comprised 51 UGs and 51 PGs, respectively (the student population for the program was around 100 UGs and 100 PGs).FindingsSurvey results showed that mobile devices had changed the respondents’ habit of reading news to read more content on phones, with a variation on news categories. Such changes included the duration and location of news discussion among the respondents that shorter periods were used to read and that more people read while traveling and in restaurants. Notably, reading the news helped respondents in their learning. Most respondents preferred to read electronic news by using mobile devices. The convenience of reading and discussing news may also cause a potential threat that intensifies disputes, arguments or even bullying on controversial issues.Originality/valueThis study confirmed that the usage of the mobile devices changed the respondents’ habit of reading news. This user group constitutes the future generation of information specialists in various disciplines. This study fills the research gap of finding students’ reading habits when using mobile devices, especially in East Asia. Educators are encouraged to recommend relevant news content to students to improve their general knowledge base and arouse their interest in reading and discussing related news topics.

Mobile devices not only bring convenience to aspects of life but also change people’s behaviour in their daily lives, in particular reading. While most of the studies focus on reading books, there are few systematic publications primarily focusing on electronic periodicals, especially comparing the different needs of patrons from different faculties. Through an online questionnaire, the authors explored whether and how university patrons of the University of Hong Kong changed their reading behaviour of e-periodicals in the context of mobile devices. Six reading patterns were investigated: reading frequency, types of periodicals, preference of mobile devices, reading time spent, reading time slot and reading location. The authors purposefully compare subjects selected from three faculties (Education, Engineering and Science) to examine whether research and learning requirements affect their behaviours. The analysis found that reading patterns did indeed change after patrons adopted mobile devices to read periodicals. There are also some statistically significant differences among the faculties investigated, reflecting their different information needs. The findings can help academic libraries review their periodical subscription policies and reading promotion schemes to satisfy various patrons’ needs.