Collaborative knowledge building through BBS for better cross-cultural communication

This paper presents the results of the authors\´ exploratory research concerning the impact of using a BBS for facilitating cross-cultural communication between two groups of students: students at Dokkyo University in Japan and students at The University of Illinois in the United States. Our objectives were not only to find out a better way to promote cross-cultural communication on the internet, but also to investigate what works and what does not work in utilizing a BBS for cross-cultural communication. As a means of measuring the degree of impact, we had the participants answer the questionnaire on the "images" of the people of the other group. Upon completion of our four-month BBS project, we administered exactly the same questionnaire and compared the results. The findings obtained in the "pre-questionnaire" suggest that each group of students had stereotypical images. Additionally, to what extent and in what ways the utilization of a BBS affects the images and understandings of another culture were also investigated and discussed.