The Community of Inquiry (COI) framework was developed in the late 1990s to assess the teaching and learning process in asynchronous, text-based e-learning environments. Since its development, the structure of COI framework has been confirmed through factor analysis (Garrison, Cleveland- Innes, & Fung, 2004) and deemed useful in examining higher education (HE) environments including face-to-face (F2F) environments, blended learning environments, web-based synchronous environments, and Multi-User Virtual Environments (Arbaugh, 2007; Garrison, Cleveland, Innes, Koole, & Kappelman, 2006; McKerlich & Anderson, 2007; Nippard & Murphy, 2007; Vaughan & Garrison, 2005).

Based on John Dewey’s (1933) practical inquiry model and consistent with many of the tenets of social constructivist theory, Garrison and Anderson (2003) noted that the COI framework is based on the notion that knowledge construction is a collaborative, continuous process. They stated that the community of inquiry is “a fusion of individual and shared worlds” (p. 23). The COI framework is also consistent with the values and the goals of education to promote deep learning and meaningful inquiry, for the construct of cognitive presence is concerned with higher-order thinking (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). According to the COI framework, effective learning occurs within a community in which three elements interact: social presence (SP), cognitive presence (CP), and teaching presence (TP).

Social presence is “the ability of participants in the Community of Inquiry to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to the other participants as real people”(Garrison, et al, 2000, p. 89).

Cognitive presence is “the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication” (Garrison et al., 2000,p. 89).

Teaching presence is the design and the facilitation that guides the cognitive and social processes for the purpose of educational meaningful learning outcomes (Garrison, 2000, et al.).

The underpinning assumption that the optimal educational experience occurs when there are interactions among these three elements is what makes it a useful tool for the evaluation of effective online education.