SOCIAL RELATION NETWORKS IN UT-ONLINE COMMUNITY FORUM

Abstract

So far, the existence of a virtual community forum has become a reality and social necessity in an era cybertech. It was also viewed as the electronic frontier of 21st century society that was undoubtedly for reorganizing and redefining to awareness of human being, that ways of their perceptions and explorations no longer limited by time, space, and geographic. Since the early decades of the 1990s, the existence of virtual community forum has attracted much attention and interest to the researchers, because it has significance as a social and cultural capital, and as a socio-technological solution for creating a learning community building forces. The UT-Online community forum is a virtual community forum that was built by (Universitas Terbuka) UT in year 2006 to facilitate students to share and discuss various information, ideas, experiences in relation with academic or/and non-academic. This study examines and explains the contents of relation, social ties and structures of social relation networks in UT-Online Community Forum. The results of the study are important to the distance education institutions for building sense of community to DE students.