Module 4- Assessing Faculty’s Social Presence

Assessing Faculty’s Social Presence indicators in Online Courses at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Bayamón Campus. “Social Presence appears to contribute to student satisfaction with the online learning experience. Specifically, it contributes to student motivation, to enhance online learning environment, and has been associated to retention and completion of online courses.” (Serrano Núñez (2005)

As a student who has participated in online programs, I have encountered situations in which I felt my social presence was not an important factor in the course. This made me feel unmotivated making the course more of a task than a positive learning experience. As an educator who values technology, I recognize the indefinite benefits of technology in education, I want to take ownership and learn as much as I can about how to best create a pleasant, engaging and challenging online community for my students. Reading Serrano Nuñez case study validated my intuition that a lot of the responsibility lies on the professor in regards to social presence in an online environment.
According to Serrano Núñez online faculty social presence is a key motivating factors for students to complete online courses. In her study she concentrated on categorizing educators’ social presence into two indicators; affective and cohesive. The affective factors include emotion and humor while the cohesive refers to the inclusive communication that serves as a social function. Her results stated that 50% of the professors used affective strategies, while 75% used cohesive strategies. This means that only half of the professors demonstrated a “real life” presence online while others simply communicated course related material without emotion. After considering this case study and my personal experiences, I would have to agree that this disparity in performance, as it relates to social presence, is related to the lack of training needed for computer mediated communication.