DO ONLINE COHORTS EVOLVE INTO AUTHENTIC LEARNING COMMUNITIES OF INQUIRY? A CASE OF THE EDD COHORT STUDENT IN THE EDD PROGRAM Lucilla Crosta 1 , Viola Manokore 2 , Morag Gray 3 1 University of Liverpool (ITALY) 2 University of Liverpool (CANADA) 3 University of Liverpool (UNITED KINGDOM Abstract The aim of this research was to investigate the extent to which (if at all) a cohort of students in a Professional Doctorate of Higher Education program evolved into an authentic online learning community. This programme attracts students from all over the world who interact in asynchronous virtual learning environment. This research work was in two phases. Phase one consisted of auditing three out of the nine taught modules in the programme. The audit explored a cohort of students’ interaction patterns within and between three modules. During phase two some students volunteered to participate in the in-depth unstructured interviews designed to gain some insights on the issues that were identified in phase 1 of the study. Using the Community of Inquiry model we discovered that a majority of the students did not feel their cohort resembled an authentic online learning community. Although cognitive presence as higher order learning intent was evident in the whole class and small team discussion, social presence (emotional and social connections with other students) was less evident or absent in some cases in the modules. We found out that teaching presence was predominantly on the mediation with cognitive presence and social presence. The paper discusses outcomes from the major findings and their implications to motivations to complete the program and to formation of online communities of inquiry. Keywords: Professional Doctorate, online education, community, social presence, teaching, team. 1 INTRODUCTION The EdD program (Professional Doctorate in Higher Education) is an international online program run by a well-established European University in partnership with a well-known consortium of International Universities. The programme is composed of nine tutor facilitated ten-week modules that run parallel with Doctoral Developmental Planning (DDP) Modules. In the DDP modules, a mentor provides support and assists students in developing their transferrable skills throughout the programme. On completion of the taught element of the programme, students then progress into the thesis stage that lasts between 12 and 30 months. The researchers are three experienced online tutors who have been working in the programme across different modules for at least three years. The stimulus to conduct this study arose from listening to students as they expressed both positive and negative experiences in their collaboration and interactions with their peers. The aim of the study was to explore if the EdD international students’ interactions and collaboration within the learning environment resembled an authentic online learning community of inquiry [1]. In addition, we were interested in exploring whether the design of the program enhances and supports the evolution and elevation of EdD cohorts to online learning communities. In this study, we defined an authentic online learning community as a group of online learners working collaboratively, that have a shared vision, and empowered by the learning environment [2] and where continuous discussion and collaboration can lead to higher-level learning [1]. In our research context, this community takes place through the use of asynchronous text-based Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) [3] with tools such as online forums and emails. Given the international geographical distribution of students and faculty in the EdD. program, the following research question guided our study - ”Is the online learning environment enabling learners to build, form and sustain learning communities in order to support each other throughout their doctoral journey and increase their on-going motivation?“ Proceedings of ICERI2015 Conference 16th-18th November 2015, Seville, Spain ISBN: 978-84-608-2657-6 1663