Digital education reading group: November 2025
In our November meeting we are looking forward to welcoming back Leonard Houx as our host. Leonard is a CODE Fellow and Director of Learning Design at Cambridge Education Group. He has curated a thought provoking pair of readings, giving us the opportunity to critique a long established and influential approach to online education: the Community of Inquiry framework.
This session examines one of the most influential theoretical frameworks in online education research alongside its most penetrating critique. We’ll explore what makes the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework so widely adopted, then consider what problems it might have.
Primary reading
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2–3), 87–105.
Full article available with your University of London library credentials.
This paper launched a thousand studies. With over 11,700 citations, Garrison, Anderson, and Archer’s Community of Inquiry framework has dominated online learning research for over two decades. Their three-element model – cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence – provided researchers and practitioners with a seemingly comprehensive way to understand and design online educational experiences. The framework’s influence extends far beyond academia, shaping institutional policies, course design practices, and faculty development programs worldwide.
Critical counter-reading
Xin, C. (2012). A Critique of the Community of Inquiry Framework. International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education Revue Internationale Du E-Learning Et La Formation à Distance, 26(1).
Xin’s systematic critique exposes potential fundamental problems with this influential framework: the artificial separation of inherently interconnected processes, the oversimplification of complex communicative acts, and the reduction of dynamic intellectual engagement to static categories. Her analysis questions whether frameworks can become “pragmatic tools” at the expense of theoretical coherence, and whether the CoI model truly captures what it claims to measure.
For discussion
- What accounts for the CoI framework’s extraordinary influence and widespread adoption?
- What are its strengths as a practical and research tool?
- What are the potential costs when Xin’s critique suggests that the framework may oversimplify the very phenomena it seeks to explain?
Join us to consider both the appeal and the limitations of one of online education’s most foundational ideas.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas. Let us know if you have any questions or need help accessing the materials.
Leonard Houx
List of topics discussed at previous meetings
