“…Researchers have identified social presence (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976;Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997;So & Brush, 2008), social interaction (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997;Picciano, 2002), collaborative learning (Kitchen &McDougall, 1998;Curtis & Lawson, 2001;So & Brush, 2008), and satisfaction (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997;So & Brush, 2008) as important and essential elements for any successful and effective online course design (McFadden, 2006).…”