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).
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