From this article:
Presence is the most important best practice for an online course (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010, p. 53) Research has shown that an important component in students 'performance in and satisfaction with their online course is the active participation of the instructor within their course (Picciano, 2002; Rovai, 2002; Swan & Shih, 2005).
***Because online Presence is such a pivotal part of our role as facilitators, social media certainly assists us in actively participating in each course.
This article addresses the essentials for F2F and online teaching and learning--presence and community. Some interesting comments were made about facilitator presence in an online course.
Northwestern University, United States Received 18 May 2015, Revised 14 December 2015, Accepted 18 December 2015, Available online 23 December 2015 * Enterprise social network systems (ESNs) provide online spaces for informal learning. * Community members actively participate in non-mandatory, informal ESN spaces. * Social presence is the most frequent Community of Inquiry element in these spaces.
I did a generic search for online learning, and this was the first result. It is interesting that Harvard has vested so much in its online presence. At one point the online certificate was described as Harvard "branded," which made me cringe a bit.