Social Presence among Distance Learners: Portrait of Online Communication at Universitas Terbuka*

Abstract

One of the main challenges faced by both distance education institutions and distance education students is how to maintain the spirit of students’ learning processes which is often felt solely. In providing services to students, Universitas Terbuka (UT) develops a variety of online services which are summarized in the facility of UT Online. Through this facility, students can communicate with UT and with other students, both for academic and non-academic purposes. Social presence, the ability to relatively feel proximity and intimacy in online interaction, becomes an important factor in disposing of the solitude sense of distance education students. This study explores various social presence indicators articulated by UT students in online interaction. By using the qualitative approach and implementing discourse analysis method, this study shows that social presence is quite minimum occurs in academic online interactive activities. As for the non-academic online interaction, social presence is more visible articulated. Social presence indicators emerging in online interactions are in the form of sharing stories and personal experiences, using informal hail, using emoticons, putting pictures as personnel identity, using informal everyday language, and motivating each other. One finding that should be highlighted is that distance learners are extending their online communication through social media.