The Challenges Behind the Development of an E-Mentoring Model for Online Distance Education

Different higher education institutions (HEI) have broadly adopted peer mentoring as a strategy to provide initial and continuous support for new students, to promote their academic inclusion. In Distance Education HEI, peer e-mentoring assumes a crucial role in the promotion and maintenance of social and cognitive presence and in the creation of a sense of belonging to the academic community. Thus, it is assumed as a crucial support for the overcoming of online students' specific difficulties and as a factor for his success. After a theoretical framework, this chapter presents the case of a pilot e-mentoring project implemented in a European open university based on the paradigms of virtual learning communities and the model of the community of inquiry (CoI). To conclude, it presents a set of assumptions for the construction of an e-mentoring model adapted to online DE and further research to be conducted.