Social Presence and Collaboration in Online Learning Environments in an Age of Generative AI

Dear Colleagues,

This Education Sciences Special Issue centers on the role of emotional, affective connections and social presence as a critical component in fostering connection, engagement, interaction, trust, and knowledge-building in online learning environments. Social presence often involves collaborative learning for deeper understanding, critical thinking, and the cultivation of students’ professional and interpersonal skills.

At the same time, the rise in generative artificial intelligence (AI) introduces both opportunities and challenges for online education. Generative AI tools have the potential to support collaboration, scaffold communication, and provide personalized feedback. Yet, they also raise critical questions about authenticity, trust, and equity, which challenge the very nature of presence and collaboration in digital environments. As online and hybrid modalities continue to expand across higher education, K–12, and professional learning, understanding how social presence and collaboration evolve in the age of generative AI is both timely and urgent.

Aim and Scope

This Special Issue seeks to bring together cutting-edge research and innovative practices that explore the importance of social presence as a guiding principle in the age of generative AI. Though AI is reshaping social presence and collaboration in online learning environments. We invite scholars, educators, designers, and technologists to interrogate both the promises and the pitfalls of AI in fostering human connection, community, and collaborative knowledge creation.

The Special Issue welcomes empirical studies, theoretical contributions, design-based research, conceptual analyses, and case studies. Interdisciplinary perspectives—from education, communication, psychology, instructional design, computer science, and related fields—are strongly encouraged.

Suggested Themes

Potential topics of interest for this Special Issue include (but are not limited to):

• Understanding the role of social presence in online learning and adding to the literature of understanding higher education, K–12, and professional learning
• Social presence’s offensive, not defensive, role in keeping generative AI from hindering collaboration and connectedness in course communities
• Pedagogical and theoretical models that balance AI integration with authentic human connection
• Ethical and equity considerations in online social presence in the age of generative AI
• The role changing role of social presence for identity, instructors, and learning
• AI as a co-learner, peer, or collaborator: implications for group work
• Case studies social presence in collaborative online learning environments
• Designing online platforms and tools to support social presence in the era of AI
• Student and instructor perceptions of social presence
• Methodologies for measuring social presence
• The future of trust, identity, authenticity, and social presence in AI-mediated online education

Dr. Aimee Whiteside
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.