Yoder, M. (2003). Seven steps to successful online learning communities. Learning and Leading with Technology, 30 (6), 14–21.

Yoder (2003) in her article suggested seven steps toward creating successful online

learning communities. They are listed as the following:
1 Begin with Curriculum
2 Spend Time Planning
3 Encourage a Positive Social Climate
4 Understand the Unique Nature of Online Communication
5 Encourage Good Reading and Writing Skills
6 Deal with Inappropriate Behavior and Attitudes.
7 Use Effective Facilitation Skills.

The seven strategies help facilitators setting up high level online communication. These

seven strategies assist teachers’and learners’ smooth transition from a traditional f2f

learning to an online learning community.


Riel and Polin (2004) proposed three major types of online learning community, the task-

based learning community, the practice-based learning community and the knowledge-based

learning community. Because learning communities are diverse in its culture and goals,

besides the seven generalized strategies, online facilitators may need to consider

further. For instance, the role of an instructor of a task-based learning community may be

slightly different from the role of a practice-based learning community.



The seven strategies provide a foundation of building up a successful online learning

community in a generalized approach. Therefore in addition to them, online instructors may

need to look at the facilitation strategies to the learning community based on its

characteristics.

Goodyear, P., Salmon,G., Spector, J. M., Steeples, C., & Tickner, S. (2001). Competences for Online Teaching: A special report. Educational Technology Research and Development, v49(1), p65-72.


Goodyear,Salmon, Spector, Steeples and Tickner (2001) in the article “competence for online teaching” suggested that online teachers have the following roles: content facilitator, technologist, researcher, assessor, designer, adviser/counsellor, process facilitator and manager/administrator. This is very similar as Berge’s (1995) opinion. Berge noted that online instructors’ roles are fallen into pedagogical, social, managerial and technical areas. In fact, online teacher’s role in the “competence for online teaching can be categorised into Berge’s four roles as following:

• Pedagogical: Content Facilitator, assessor, researcher, designer, process facilitator

• Social: process facilitator

• Managerial: process facilitator, manager/administrator

• Technical: technologist

Online teachers’ roles were viewed in different ways in the two articles, but they all suggest that the major roles of a competent online teacher are facilitating, managing, supporting and assessing online learners; and these roles are not much different from the roles of f2f teachers.

Four types of interaction have been identified in the online learning by Chan (2002). They are learner-learner interaction, learner-content interaction, learner-interface interaction and learner-instructor interaction. The major roles of online teachers reflect what a competent online teacher should do to enhance interaction. Here are some examples based on Goodyear’s online teachers’ roles and Chan’s four type of interaction in distance education.

• Learner-learner interaction: process facilitator (creating community and managing communication).

• Learner-interface interaction: technologist (assists students with technical difficulties and makes choice of technology).

• Learner-instructor interaction: manager/administrator, assessing (validation learners’ work).

• Learner-content interaction: Content Facilitator (facilitating learner’s understanding of course content), designer (designing learning tasks).

Berge, Z.L. (1995). Facilitating Computer Conferencing: Recommendations From the Field. Educational Technology

Four roles of online instructor/facilitator were identified in this article and they are categorized into pedagogical, social, managerial, and technical area. Similarly, such roles can also be found in f2f learning environment. When we take a close look at the technical role of online instructor, a question is emerged.


Berge suggested that “the facilitator must make participants comfortable with the system and the software that the conference is using. The ultimate technical goal for the instructor is to make the technology transparent.” Many instructors have had experience of repeatedly answering questions like “I cannot install this software on my PC” or “how do you publish the PPT on the Google Docs”. Instructors may have extra workload on providing technical support than the actual teaching. Furthermore, some questions may be very technical and go beyond instructors’ IT knowledge and ability. This is an issue that an online instructor faces.

Institutes should not expect instructors to be the technical support to online learners. Very often, the decision of using certain software or system, WebCT and Moodle for instance, are not up to instructors. The role and responsibility of online instructors in terms of the technical support should be clarified when offering an online course. To achieve the ultimate goal (make the technology transparent), three parties, instructors, institutes and online learners need to work together.