Social and emotional dynamics have an impact on students' learning processes in online-learning situations. This study explores university students' emotions and trust levels resulting from collaborative communication behaviors when they interacted as part of a Food and Tourism course in Taiwan and Hong Kong. More specifically, students' emotions and trust levels were investigated and were founded to have varied over the course of the study. Results show that the Taiwan-based participants seemed to express their emotions more strongly than the Hong Kong-based ones. Both the Hong Kong and Taiwan groups generally felt satisfied, excited and curious, whereas they were sometimes perceived to be dispirited, insecure and angry while the project was in progress and at the end of the project. The three sources that caused most emotional comment were "self", "social" and "others". When it came to dealing with emotion, most students tried to solve problems by themselves. They believed that they had the ability to solve the problems and held themselves responsible for dealing with their own emotions. The pair trust survey shows that both groups gave positive responses for all items, but there seemed to be a gap between the perception of pair trust and the reality of dealing with emotion.
[Copyright of TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology is the property of TOJET.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://www.tojet.net/]

There has been a substantial rise in the number of students enrolling in part-time taught postgraduate awards. This study investigates the reasons or motivation for students to spend significant amounts on tutorial fees and find time alongside work, family and social commitments to take a taught postgraduate award. Data were gathered through interviews with 21 part-time students in taught postgraduate programmes in Hong Kong. Students all held several motives for studying, so the outcome was a framework for explaining multiple interacting motives. Main categories of motivation were related to qualifications, current career, potential future career, interest, perpetual students and professional and social networks. Individual students displayed varying degrees of these motivations and the sub-categories of them. Students were able to specify their needs in terms of advanced specialised study, so enrolment satisfied a need for continuing professional development. The rise in taught postgraduate enrolments, in search of advanced specialised knowledge, seems set to continue as undergraduate degrees become broader and more attribute-oriented and the knowledge explosion makes it harder to reach the frontiers of knowledge.
[Copyright of Studies in Continuing Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2011.646979]

Drawing on the notions of scale and space, this paper investigates identity construction among a group of mainland Chinese cross-boundary students by analysing their language choices and linguistic practices in a multilingual university in Hong Kong. The research illustrates how movement across spaces by these students produces varying index values for languages and influences their language usage, which becomes emblematic of individual and group identities. The research demonstrates that the values developed in their place of origin may have influences on their identity construction and peer communication in the host context. Finally, it shows that these students use their multiple linguistic repertoires to project multilayered identities and gain legitimacy in peer interactions.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2012.663553]

The purpose of this study is to examine how potential customers (students) of tertiary educational institutions perceive the co-branding of such institutions with hotels. This study is an attempt to provide useful insights into the variables that influence evaluation of brand alliances in service sectors, and to discuss implications for institutional and hotel reputation building. Quantitative data were collected from students of post-secondary colleges in Hong Kong by using self-administered questionnaires. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the six alliances between tertiary educational institution brands and hotel brands. The findings suggest that consumer pre-attitudes toward brand partners and perceived brand fit are positively related to consumer evaluations of the brand alliance. In addition, brand familiarity is found to be important in moderating the relationship between perceived brand fit and consumer evaluations of the brand alliance. This study gives an additional empirical research into brand alliances in service sectors. Future research could also consider evaluating brand alliances from the perspectives of hotel customers. Marketers must carefully consider consumer perceptions of fit and the importance of brand familiarity when seeking allied partners. This study breaks from the ranks of strategic management studies of alliances focusing on the views of managers, to examine brand alliances from the customer perspective. Moreover, it has bridged the gaps between various management and marketing disciplines, showing the applicability of product branding concepts to service branding and institutional reputation building contexts.
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Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijbm/]