introduction

Pedagogical and technological innovations are redefining higher education. At the nexus of this convergence is e-learning. Concurrent quality and cost reduction pressures are creating the conditions for the transformation of higher education. The ubiquitous and cost-effective technologies used to access information and connect learners have significantly shifted thinking in higher education. At the core of this shift in thinking is the idea that students should be actively engaged in sustainable communities of inquiry. It has been shown that active engagement in a learning community is associated with reflective discourse and deep learning outcomes (Akyol & Garrison, in press a; Brown, 2001; Chapman, Ramondt, & Smiley, 2005; Rovai, 2002). The point has been made that if e-learning approaches “do not deepen the learning experiences of students, they are not worth much” (Weigel, 2002, p. 1). The affordances of new, ubiquitous and powerful communications technologies and their ability to create and sustain communities of learners have quietly established e-learning in the mainstream of higher education.