The current study focuses on the social aspect of Virtual Exchange, examining social presence (SP) within the IVEProject (Intercultural Virtual Exchange Project) which took place from October to November 2024.  The research employs the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework for online learning, which consists of three main elements, or “presences” online: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence (Garrison, 2016). The study focuses specifically on SP, the degree to which participants in a collaborative online learning community feel socially and emotionally connected to one another during the learning process. SP has been shown to facilitate online learning, to positively affect learning outcomes and academic performance, leading to higher satisfaction rates across various learning environments (Mykota, 2018). Using pre- and post-surveys, forum reports, and students’ engagement reports, our study examines the SP reported by learners who took part in the project. It focuses on two aspects. First, attention is paid to potential differences in responses to the survey items. Second, the study focuses on correlations for SP identified in the field’s literature and that could be expected to be observable in the surveys : learners’ participation in face-to-face discussions (Chim et al., 2024), and students’ engagement (Felce et al., 2022).