ABSTRACT
The early adopters of e-learning immediately recognized its potential to support a collaborative learning experience. Along with this, however, came the need to create a welcoming learning environment that would serve the educational needs for which it was intended. This precipitated considerable thought and discussion with regard to replicating a classroom experience. What was not fully appreciated was that creating a community of learners through an asynchronous text-based means of communication represented a qualitative shift from that of a real-time, verbal, face-to-face mode of communication. As such, the challenge of creating an open and cohesive community of inquiry in a medium that provides no visual cues other than words or images on a screen presented a unique challenge for educators.
