Introducing the community of inquiry

The Community of Inquiry (COI) is a foundational framework for anybody preparing to teach online. Rooted in a social constructivist view of education, the COI highlights the importance of social engagement and collaboration between learners. It is focused on the key notion of presence - the sense of being there for students. In campus-based teaching and learning models, where teachers and students meet each other regularly, presence is taken as a given. In the online environment however, it needs to be intentionally cultivated. Research using the COI framework has identified three types of presence that help students to learn online - social, teaching, and cognitive. Designing online courses to include these three elements helps create a supportive environment that gives students the best opportunity to be successful in their studies.