Social Presence, Self-Presentation, and Privacy in Tele-Collaboration: What Information Are Students Willing to Share?

Previous literature has examined the efficacy of using telecollaboration with students for learning about language and culture, identified common implementation problems, and the importance of students establishing an online social presence. However, the request for students to establish an online social presence for communication with fellow students in internationally dispersed classes, may conflict with their perception regarding their rights to online privacy.The primary purpose of this study is to present the survey results from 255 Japanese university students to examine the attitudes of Japanese students toward sharing personal information during the process of establishing an online social presence in an academic setting. These findings university are presented to illustrate difficulties teachers can have in predicting what students will view as intrusions of their privacy. A shorter version of the survey was also administered to 160 Chinese university students. The secondary purpose of this study is to compare results from Japan and China to determine if the attitudes held by Japanese university students are held by their Chinese peers, and to illustrate that students may differ in attitudes towards the sharing of personal information for reasons based on cultural and conditional perceptions of privacy.