The Community of Inquiry Framework Ten Years Later: Introduction to the Special Issue

It has been 10 years since Randy Garrison, Terry Anderson and Walter Archer (2000) first introduced the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model. As recounted in the first article in this special issue, the CoI framework was developed to help them make sense of issues confronting their new online graduate program, a program in which computerbased discussion forums played a central role. Because the pedagogy behind online discussion forums assumes that students will work together, not independently as in traditional distance education, a new theoretical model was needed to explain and explore the online educational experience. Thus was born the CoI framework.