1. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Charlotte N. (Lani) Gunawardena, Ph.D. Professor University of New Mexico, USA Social Presence and Implications for Designing Online Learning Communities Fourth International Conference on Educational Technology July 31 - August 3, 2005, Nanchang, China

2. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Confucius( 孔子 ) The father of group learning in China “When three of us are walking together, I am sure to have a teacher. I'd select his merits to follow, and his demerits to correct myself”. ------Tianlatio 1989

3. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Define “Social Presence” and review research Discuss study on social presence and learner satisfaction in online learning (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997) Report preliminary results of study in Morocco and Sri Lanka on cultural perspectives on social presence (Gunawardena, Bouachrine, Idrissi, & Jayatileke, 2005) Draw implications for designing online learning communities Purpose

4. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Social Presence (SP) Degree to which a person is perceived as a “real person” in mediated communication Intimacy (SP of Medium, differs in different media) TV vs. Audio Non-verbal cues Immediacy (psychological distance of communicator, differs in same medium) Non-verbally: Formality of dress Verbally: Aloofness

5. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena

6. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Social presence … the degree to which a person feels “socially present” in mediated communication links to the larger social context of an online environment What We Know About Social Presence including: interaction group cohesion verbal and non-verbal communication attitudes and motivation social equality, etc.

7. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Significant factor in improving satisfaction (Hackman & Walker, 1990; Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997) Can be cultured (Johansen et. al. 1988) What We Know About Social Presence Users develop techniques to overcome absence of social context cues: Emoticons :-) :-(  ;-) Metalinguistic cues: “hmmm” “yuk” Social presence …

8. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Social Presence Subjective measure of the presence of others Ongoing Research on Social Presence Social Presence and Interactivity: How are they related? (Rafaeli, 1988, 1990) Interactivity The “quality” of the communication sequence or context

9. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Ongoing Research on Social Presence Can highly interactive virtual environments evoke a sense of social presence? (Lombard & Ditton, 1997) e.g. research on pedagogical agents Are there cultural differences in the perceptions of social presence? (Tu 2001, Gunawardena et al. 2001, Gunawardena, et al. 2005) How do we measure social presence? (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison & Archer 2001, Kreijns & Jochems, 2003)

10. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997 How effective is SP as a predictor of learner satisfaction? Study CMC from a social-relational perspective Study: Social Presence and Learner Satisfaction

11. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena

12. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Social Presence Equal Tech Attitude Active Barriers Capable Trained Independent VariablesModel 1 Model 2 Dependent Variable 58% 6% 5% 60% 6% 4% 75% 70% Learner Satisfaction Study: Results

13. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Study: The Effects of Emoticon Use I intentionally used emoticons to express my feelings 123456 10 20 30 40 50 Satisfaction ___ SP High ---- SP Low Note: Social Presence artificially dichotomized at medium for clarity.

14. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Gunawardena, Bouachrine, Idrissi, Jayatileke, 2005 & ongoing How can social presence be described from the sociocultural context of Morocco and Sri Lanka? Study: Cultural Perspectives on Social Presence What are the dimensions that comprise the construct “social presence in these two sociocultural contexts? Method: Qualitative study using grounded theory methods (Glaser & Strauss 1967, & Strauss & Corbin 1994) Individual and focus group interviews

15. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena

16. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Cultural Perspectives On SP - Results 2005 Social Presence - emerged as a central phenomenon in communication patterns of Internet chat users - “realness” of the other, and own persona Social Presence is related to: a) building trust, b) process of identity revelation, c) resolution of conflict, d) interpretation of silence, and the e) innovation of language forms to generate immediacy.

17. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Presence CMCCMCCMCCMC CMCCMCCMCCMC Oh please, Talk to me! R Reinforcement P Praising, Personalizing E Encouragement S Smilies :-) E Experiences N Names C Comfort E Evaluative Feedback

18. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Virtual Pubs & Cyber Cafes Introductions (self-disclosure) Moderators creating a sense of community & being there Formats for interaction - story telling, experiences Social Presence & Building Online Community Virtual costume party Photo gallery of class members & instructor Real time interaction – chats, teleconferences Online social techniques – e.g. emoticons, metalinguistic cues

19. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Developing an Online Community Metaphor for Community Building: In Keresan Pueblo communities of New Mexico giftedness is defined as an individual’s ability to contribute to the good of the community (Romero & Schultz, 1994) Community, Collaboration, and Interaction must become central in course design Assessment must reward collaboration, contribution to community, and products developed within the community FOCAL instructional design model - Gunawardena, et al. 2004

20. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena FOCAL MODEL

21. Social PresenceCharlotte (Lani) Gunawardena Thank You For questions, contact