The designer of online courses needs to consider how he or she and others teachinga course will be able to leverage design features such as built-in interactions andavenues for communication

Clearly set expectations and how instructors see their role in class discussions (asDennen, 2005, found, there is not one right way to facilitate discussions) (Shea,Hayes, & Vickers, 2010)• Add humor when appropriate (e.g., post content-related comic strips) (seeGunawardena & Zittle, 1997; Rourke et al., 1999; Sung & Mayer, 2012; Wiseet al., 2004)

to design courses that reflect not only your personality but also,most importantly, your own instructional values

investigated instructor social presence in accelerated onlinecourses which the instructors did not design and in which they did not have authoringaccess to the courses. In courses like these, the instructors could only share things aboutthemselves—and that they were “real” and “there”—through the course discussions andthe grade book. In this mixed-methods exploratory study that focused solely on analyzingonline course discussions, Lowenthal found that instructors spent some time establishingtheir own social presence (e.g., greetings and salutations, inclusive language, empathy)but that they quickly shifted their focus from social presence behaviors to teaching pres-ence behaviors (e.g., dealing with course logistics), most likely because of the lack of timein eight-week accelerated online courses

concept of intimacy (Argyle & Dean, 1965), which in instructional terms can be thoughtof as supporting and meeting the needs of individual learners. Although an instructor’ssocial presence, and specifically this type of immediacy and intimacy, depends largelyon teacher-to-student interaction, it also depends on the design and development deci-sions that permeate all aspects of a course, including individual projects or assignments