Students in distance education often study under conditions of relative social isolation. This is also reflected in online learning environments that are not sociable but aloof. This session will first introduce the SIPS model and then report on a field-setting quasi-experiment conducted at FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany. It will describe an "ecological" approach to designing sociable online learning environments and fostering socio-emotional variables such as social presence, and discuss the concept of social affordances and sociability as proposed by the SIPS model.

The results of the study are promising in that they show support for this approach to making learning environments more sociable, as well as effects on social presence, satisfaction, and other variables. These findings will be discussed in terms of their relevance for future research as well as their applicability for practitioners.