Adapting the Community of Inquiry Survey for an Online Graduate Program: Implications for Online Programs

A cohort-based online professional doctorate program that consisted of both online coursework and research activities was designed using Garrison et al's community of inquiry (CoI) framework. The evaluation of the program proved a challenge because all existing CoI assessment methods in the past have dealt with online courses, not with online programs. In the absence of a validated instrument for measuring the success of the community of inquiry design at a program level, the CoI survey for online courses was adapted and used with the second cohort of online students ( n = 18). This article presents (a) an extension of the construct's cognitive, teaching, and social presence for online programs, and (b) an instrument to measure student perceptions of a CoI that encompasses asynchronous and synchronous interactions, as well as course-specific and non-course-specific interactions in different learning spaces.