In correspondence courses and broadcast distance education courses the primary modes of communication and interaction included students reading a study guides, textbooks, or listening to viewing a radio or television broadcasts. With the transition to Internet-based courses, instructional designers and instructors could choose between a wide variety of both asynchronous and synchronous interactions in their courses. Three types of interactions identified by Moore (1989) include learner-content, learner–learner, and learner-instructor interactions. While Moore identified these three types of interactions, designers and instructors have had to determine the best way to implement each.

How should these interactions be used in a distance education course? For learner-content interactions, Holmberg (1989) describes a strategy for creating a guided didactic conversation. Keegan (1996) describes a process for reintegrating the teaching and learning act that are separated in time that are particularly applicable to textual materials. Similarly, Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) describe how to structure learner–learner and learner-instructor interactions in their Community of Inquiry framework. Anderson (2003) suggests that deep and meaningful interactions will occur as long as one of the three forms of interactions is at a high level. A logical question is whether these three forms of interaction are all equally effective. Similarly, one might ask how to best employ each of these types of interactions to enhance learning. The six articles in this special issue examine the use of interaction to enhance learning. The following is a brief introduction to the articles in this special issue.

Interaction in distance education and online learning: using evidence and theory to improve practice

Abrami, Bernard, Bures, Borokhovski and Tamim re-examine the results of Bernard et al. (2009) analysis of interactions in distance education. Abrami et al. argue for a new approach to investigating the value of instructional treatments in distance education by comparing two distance education treatments to one another rather two comparing two different delivery technologies (i.e., classroom instruction to online instruction). They also provide principles derived from evidence-based research to support the design of instructional strategies employing interaction in distance education.

Challenges in supporting self-regulation in distance education environments

Bol and Garner focus on learner-content interactions and examine how designers and instructors can employ self-regulated learning strategies to improve comprehension of online instructional materials. One question they raise is how to best support the learner’s self-regulating activities in an asynchronous instructional environment. They provide evidence-based examples of how designers and instructors can help learners better use self-regulated strategies.

Distance education research: a review of the literature

Simonson, Schlosser, and Orellan provide a review of the distance education literature. In particular, they identify areas of distance learning research, review earlier reviews of the literature, discuss research on impediments to distance learning implementation, and research concerning the best practices in distance education. Simonson et al. list five reasons explaining why the distance education research literature is difficult to summarize.

Interaction and the online distance classroom: do instructional methods affect the quality of interaction?

Kanuka summarizes two different approaches to the use of interaction in distance education courses. The first examines group interactions that focus on the learning process while using the Community of Inquiry framework. The second focuses on learning products using the SOLO (structure of the observed learning outcome) taxonomy. She concludes that the level of interaction employed in a course determines the quality of the student’s experience regardless of the delivery system.

Student-content interactions in online courses: the role of question prompts in facilitating higher-level engagement with course content

Ertmer reports a study that investigated the effect of different types/levels of questions employed in online discussions on student responses and interactions. Ertmer examined the effect of different types of questions on critical thinking. This paper addresses the issue of what type of questions an instructor should ask to promote both interaction and critical thinking in an online discussion.

Framework for asynchronous discussion design decisions: applied guidelines from special issue authors

Grabowski provides a framework for planning, developing, and executing instructional materials in an online environment based on the principles presented in the other articles in this issue on interaction. Application of the framework is illustrated through the redesign of a course.

These six articles provide an in depth analysis of interaction in distance education. The collection of articles provides guidelines for practitioners for designing interactions. For the researcher, the articles raise a number of questions and provide suggestions for future research on interactions in distance instruction.