Epistemic Justice in Data Analytics during the American AI Renaissance

This paper examines how Facebook can be used as a digital learning environment to improve the academic writing literacy of Bangladeshi higher education. Since Facebook is a popular social network of interaction, this study evaluates how it can facilitate academic compositions in collaboration with peers, feedback, and sharing of resources. Due to the difficulties encountered by Bangladeshi students in their academic training in writing, such as the lack of writing supplies and digital illiteracy, Facebook provides a convenient, familiar, and easily accessible means of promoting the interaction beyond the traditional classroom environment. The study design is qualitative research comprising of semi-structured interviews with faculty and students and content analysis of Facebook based interactions in writing. The results indicate that Facebook is an effective tool in increasing student involvement in academic written activities and majority of students testified that peer feedback in Facebook helped them to improve the quality of their writing. Nevertheless, distractions, digital literacy challenges, and different quality of feedback were found to be problematic. The members of the faculty showed interest in the collaborative opportunities of the platform and expressed some worries regarding the preservation of academic integrity. The research concludes that Facebook is a promising tool in enhancing academic writing literacy in Bangladesh but its application can be effective provided that it will address these issues. It has been recommended to provide students with digital literacy training and faculty with it, to develop systematic guidance to conduct the Facebook-based writing groups and conduct additional research on the lasting effect of Facebook on the academic writing. This study is adding to the body of research on the use of social media in higher education and offers solutions to the educator who is willing to use digital tools in academic education.

Keywords: Academic writing literacy; Fakebook learning; Digital pedagogy; Translanguaging; Bangladeshi higher education