Autor: Tilmann P

Title: From Telepresence to Social Presence:The Role of Presence in a Network-Based Learning Environment.

Source: http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/media/mep8/Tammelin.pdf [26.09.2003]. Helsinki 2003. P. 1-10.

From Telepresence to Social Presence:
The Role of Presence in a Network-Based Learning Environment

Contents

Abstract 1

1. DEFINING TYPES OF “PRESENCE” 2

2. DEFINING TELEPRESENCE 2

3. TOWARDS SOCIAL PRESENCE 3

4. WHAT IS SOCIAL PRESENCE? 4

5. EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL PRESENCE IN A NETWORK-BASED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT 4

6. DISCUSSION 8

REFERENCES 9

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to examine the role of presence in a network-based learning environment. The article first examines and defines the concepts of two different types of presence: telepresence and social presence. In discussing telepresence, the article indicates that the meaning of the term has expanded from first referring to industrial remote control systems to currently also including references to virtual realities and interaction among geographically separated members of a group. Social presence, on the other hand, can be linked to a larger social context including eg motivation and social interaction. Finally, the article gives examples of how social presence manifests itself in a network-based learning environment. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding the inherent qualities of the telematic tools used in network-based learning when trying to foster social presence.

Keywords: Presence, telepresence, social presence, telematic media, network-based learning environments.

As the use of modern information and communication technologies in teaching and learning continues to expand, the issue of presence is likely to draw increasing attention. With the help of such telematic media as email, computer conferencing, videoconferencing and the WWW it is possible to create learning environments which do not require the participants’ physical presence. Consequently, teachers who have little or no prior personal experience in telematically mediated learning environments may experience difficulty in coping with them unless they are aware of the existence and the potential significance of presence in such mediated environments that may exclude face-to-face interaction partly or completely.

Why examine the concept of presence? This question has been approached from a theoretical point of view by eg Lombard and Ditton (1997) who, after having extensively reviewed conceptualizations of presence in the literature, have come to the conclusion that research on presence is still in its infancy. On the other hand, several attempts have been made to define ‘presence’; the actual definitions or prefixes to the term ‘presence’ reflect the particular viewpoint from which the issue is being approached. As the use of these various terms may be confusing, it is in place to define and examine the two most commonly used terms more closely, ie the terms telepresence and social presence.

The term telepresence has been around since certain areas of industry started to design remote control systems and industrial robots. As explained by Martin (1982), the term telepresence is used to indicate that the operator of a distant mechanism is provided with signals or stimuli which give him the sense, to some extent, of being present where the mechanism is. Consequently, the user of a telepresence mechanism can “work” in another location, while seeing and feeling what the remote machine is doing. Telepresence is particularly useful when working in dangerous places such as mines or underwater or when performing difficult surgical operations.

In current usage, the concept of telepresence seems to have expanded and it may refer to technologically ever more advanced operations. McLellan (1996a), who defines telepresence as a feeling of being in a location other than where you actually are, links the notion of telepresence to the concept of cyberspace and virtual realities.

Another expansion in the usage of the term is adding a human perspective into the earlier solely technological focus. The main contributor to this expansion of meaning has been the Ontario Telepresence Project (Moore 1997), which was a three-year project focused on understanding how the work activities of groups, especially groups separated by distance, could be supported by organizationally grounded media space design. One of the main leaders of the project, Buxton (1993), states, “As we use the term, telepresence is the use of technology to establish a sense of shared pgresence or shared space among geographically separated members of a group” (1993, 816). Also emphasizing the human aspect, Mason (1994) in her discussion of improvements to conferencing systems in support of collaboration summarizes them as facilities which enhance the telepresence of the group, that is, the sense of interacting with real people.

Biocca (1995), cited by McLellan (1996b), classifies presence into three types: spatial presence, self-reflective presence and social presence. According to Biocca, spatial presence is the sense of presence within a space. This space can be either a space visited via telepresence or a virtual space that only exists digitally. However, spatial presence is not limited to virtual reality applications; a sense of spatial presence can be achieved by eg multimedia applications. In Biocca’s classification, self-reflexive presence refers to the perception that the surrounding environment offers the same responses that one is accustomed to in a “real” environment, eg the trash can, the clocks and hourglasses on the computer desktop. This type of presence can be very subtle, thus presenting a challenge to the designers of graphic user interfaces and computer desktops.

Biocca’s third form of presence, social presence, refers to the sense of being present in a social encounter with another person, for instance via a telephone call where two speakers are at different physical locations but can feel fully present with each other in the context of the conversation. As the concept of social presence is of special interest from the point of view of teaching, learning and studying in a network-based educational environment, we will now move on to discuss the concept in closer detail.

The lack of sufficient research on presence seems particularly evident in connection with mediated communication in educational settings where the emphasis is on the concept of social presence. The concept of social presence was first introduced as early as 1976 by Short, Williams & Christie, who dealt with the concept from the perspective of social psychology.

They defined social presence as a quality of the communications medium itself. Furthermore, they hypothesized that the users of any given communications medium are in some sense aware of the degree of social presence of the medium and therefore tend to avoid using the medium for certain types of interactions; specifically, interactions requiring a higher degree of social presence than they perceive the medium to have. They emphasized the importance of social presence in understanding person-to-person telecommunications. As to the use of telecommunications in education, Mason (1994) describes social presence as the feeling that the people with whom one is collaborating are in the same room. McIsaac and Gunawardena (1996), on the other hand, define social presence as the degree to which a person feels “socially present” in a mediated situation, linking the issue to a larger social context including eg motivation, attitudes, social interaction and social equality.

Furthermore, Garrison (1997) considers social presence an important concept in understanding social context and creating a social climate for instance in computer conferences. He associates social presence with the degree individuals project themselves through the medium, which can be done verbally or nonverbally.

Garrison’s considerations raise an important question: how does social presence actually manifest itself in a networkbased learning environment? Some examples of such manifestations will be provided in the following chapter.

The examples of social presence presented below are drawn from a course which the Department of Languages at the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration (HSEBA) launched in January 1996. The course in question was a new English course called Environmental Communication, which had two main purposes: first, to develop the participants’ presentation and argumentation skills in English, and second, to give the participants insight into the problems related to companies’ environmental reporting and communication.

The course, currently a regular part of the department’s teaching programme, took place in a network-based learning environment, utilizing in addition to a few face-to-face sessions, such telematic media as email, computer conferencing, videoconferencing and a course site on the WWW. Two groups geographically located in different parts of the country took part in the course: one group of ten business students from HSEBA and another group of ten engineering and business students from the Lappeenranta University of Technology. The two groups communicated with each other via computer conferencing and via three one-hour videoconferences held between the groups during the courses.

Before launching the new course, the department had had some prior experience in using email and computer conferencing (eg Tammelin 1993) and a WWW–based course site in its English courses, but adding videoconferencing to the course design was a new dimension. In the design of the WWW site, the human aspect was emphasized. For instance, at the beginning of the course, the participants’ home pages were placed on the course WWW site. Many of the HSEBA students mentioned in their final reports that they considered the idea of home pages a very good one because it gave them a chance to learn more about each other, particularly about the Lappeenranta students. Furthermore, besides the threaded discussion forums focusing on the actual content of the course, there was also a café conference for social interaction. As the course leader, the writer of this article was aware of the fact that such a discussion forum does not necessarily function by itself; therefore the course assistant, a student at HSEBA, was assigned the special task of monitoring the café conference. If the discussion seemed to be drying out, her task was to try to initiate a new thread. In my role as the teacher, I also made an effort to keep the discussion rolling although I tried to refrain from taking any obvious moderator role. The main purpose of the café conference was to establish a space where the participants could demonstrate their own social presence and sense the presence of the other participants. For instance, Feenberg (1993) states that the café conference has become commonplace in online educational programs. He also argues that through a café conference participants feel fully represented as human beings on a system that welcomes them in this way, rather than excluding all but their professional contribution.

During the course the café conference seemed to fulfil its purpose as shown by the following extract from a HSEBA student’s final course report.

Example 1

“Naturally the cafe was the most popular forum. It was a great idea to start this kind of discussion space so that everybody could say something, anything, because that really played a major role in creating the common atmosphere of this course.”

It was also evident that some students contributed to the café conference much more often than others. There may have been simply technical reasons for it; during the semester when the first Environmental Communication was run there were particularly many technical problems regarding accessing the internet connection in the student network system. Many of the HSEBA participants complained about the technical problems and reported their frustrations either to the course assistant or myself.

On the other hand, the number of visits to the discussion forums may have also been related to the personalities and communication styles of the students; some students simply seemed to appreciate communicating in the written textbased environment more than others. One particular example of the impact that participating in a written text-based environment can have on a student was evident. The highest number of messages sent to the discussion forums came from a student who was the quietest member of the HSEBA group during the face-to-face sessions and the videoconferences.

Through his messages he adopted a very proactive role not only in the content-based discussion forums but particularly in the café forum, thus giving a significant contribution towards creating a positive social climate. This highly analytical student analyzes his course experience as follows:

Example 2

“My role as a student certainly became more active because of the different learning environment. In my opinion the discussion forums offer the verbally not so talented people a chance to express their opinions as well, and a chance to other people to hear about them. I think that any course that involves self-studying will benefit from a telematics-based learning environment, particularly from the email and WWW. The main difference compared to other courses was that the students could participate in building the course, and in this way it is possible to motivate people more efficiently.” The second example discloses the sense of humor of this same student who seemed quite serious during the face-to-face sessions. It is one of his many messages, whose main purpose was only to socialize with the others. The message is a thank-you note sent to the café forum after the course was officially over.

Example 3

First I would like to send a very special thanks to Maija for hosting us after the video conference on Wednesday. And thanks to everyone else too. The course was a huge success. I had two wisdom teeth pulled out on Friday. The other one needed a surgery (leikkaus) so I don’t have to worry about masks this Wappu.

It seems that the personalities and individual communication styles of the students had an impact on how they experienced the use of different communication media and the need for physical presence. Contrary to the quiet student who appreciated computer con-ferencing and email so much, there were other types of students whose sense of social presence seemed to arise from the face-to-face sessions and the three videoconferences held between the Helsinki and Lappeenranta groups. In his course report, one such student explained that the positive atmosphere prevailing in the face-to-face sessions and the videoconferences had motivated him to try his best.

Example 4

“In the planning meetings and (video)conferences the atmosphere was so inspiring and ambitious, that it motivated me to do my best and work eagerly. Participants were very active in finding new information and also informed and helped others to find out more. This forced me to try my best to find material and state arguments for my points of view. In HSEBA group meetings the good spirit showed its presence. Even though discussion was lively meetings ended up in mutual understanding.”

Example 5

“I feel that at least a few group meetings face to face are needed to create a certain atmosphere. A course where several communication channels are used is very different from a course where only for example email would be used to communicate between the participants. If you never see what the others really look like, it somehow makes it all much more distant and so there will not be the same kind of a connection.”

In their final reports, the students were asked to analyze their perceptions of a network-based learning environment.

Interesting observations were made by the following student who compares the students’ presence in a networkbased environment ,“virtual space” as she calls it, with a classroom-based environment, “normal class” as she calls it.

Example 6

“In the Internet the student can be active or passive in the same way as in a normal class. He can participate in the conversation or only observe the others if he wishes - just like in a normal class. This is quite interesting, as you however cannot see in a virtual space if someone has visited the place or not if that person does not express himself. In a classroom you will notice right away if somebody is not present or perhaps sleeps.”

In conclusion, based on the assumption that a positive social environment contributes to a beneficial learning experience, how, then, can social presence be fostered in a networkbased learning environment? The examples presented above may give some clues but a more extensive analysis of network-based educational environments is certainly needed.

As the use of technology in educational environments is not yet as transparent as some innovative educators might like to think, it is easy to agree with the opinions of the many researchers implying that the role of presence in mediated learning environments is significant and calls for further research.

This article has been an introductory attempt to answer that call, by examining the concept of presence and some manifestations of social presence in particular. This attempt no doubt raises more questions than provides answers; therefore this article like so many others also concludes with a call for further research. However, the considerations presented here do raise one important practical implication: how to ensure that teachers and, consequently also learners, understand the inherent qualities of the new telematic media in making the participants feel that they are socially present in an educational setting?

This practical implication poses a challenge for teacher education. In an effort to meet this challenge, Tella (1997) has carried out an in-depth analysis regarding the multidimensionality of media education tools and consequently, the inherent qualities of these tools. Expanding the discussion to include social presence could be the next step. It seems that in so-called classroom-based teaching and learning teachers who assume that a socially positive climate and a successful learning process are inter-related consider it their natural task to think of ways in which they can create and foster a sense of social presence in the classroom. In a network-based environment, however, it is possible to either overestimate, underestimate or perhaps completely neglect the impact that the use of various telematic media may have on fostering social presence if teachers do not have a sufficient understanding of the inherent qualities of the telematic media used. Nevertheless, it is to be emphasized that it is the presence of the teacher, not the presence of technology, that determines the learning process. As stated by Mason (1994), “As has been underlined many times, it is not the technology but the way it is used, which ultimately affects the learner. A good teacher has presence in any medium”( 1994, 34).

REFERENCES

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