Standing on the shoulders of a giant: Reconsidering humanistic perspectives on the functions of an E-moderator in virtual learning contexts

There is growing interest in fully online courses because of their learning flexibility. One of the success factors in such courses can be the carefully designed interactions between learners and learners, and of learners with tutors. Although there is a great body of literature that deals with the role of the online tutor or e-moderator in formal learning contexts, little has been published about the principles on which the development and exercise of the e-moderator's facilitative skills in nurturing the development of higher level abilities should be founded. This chapter will review seminal past and current literature relating to the practice of facilitation and e-moderation. Its overall aim is to reconceptualise some of the key facilitative skills derived from the humanistic principles of human relationships set out five decades ago by Carl Rogers (1961, 1969), and their use and evaluation subsequently within educational practice. In so doing, the authors are conscious of presenting a controversial view, and of advocating practice contentiously at variance with some present developments in this field.