The University of Buffalo, Office of Curriculum, Assessment, and Teaching Transformation defines a community of inquiry as one that recognizes the importance of interactions between the teaching, social, and cognitive presences in building positive and collaborative learning communities.
"Meaningful collaboration occurs through the interaction of three equally important elements: social, cognitive and teaching presences. The founders of the model, Garrison, Anderson & Archer (2000, 2001), offer the follow definitions of the three presences: