Web-based simulations (WBS) are increasingly used by educators to deliver higher education curricula. Given the growing number and diversity of students undertaking study in higher education institutions worldwide, it is critical that WBS are situated within a wider social-constructivist approach that facilitates community-based learning. To this end, we argue that the community of inquiry (CoI) framework offers a suitable solution. Based on a series of interviews with university educators and emergency management practitioners this paper investigates how the CoI framework can support the effective use of WBS to deliver disaster studies curricula in the higher education context. The findings indicate that purposefully addressing cognitive, social and teaching presence within a CoI is valuable when WBS are used in higher education and emphasise a range of issues that are particular to the use of WBS and the disaster studies context.

教育工作者越来越多地使用基于Web的模拟（WBS）来提供高等教育课程。鉴于全球范围内在高等教育机构学习的学生数量和多样性不断增加，至关重要的是，WBS必须位于更广泛的社会建构主义方法之内，以促进基于社区的学习。为此，我们认为查询社区（CoI）框架提供了合适的解决方案。在对大学教育者和紧急事件管理从业人员进行一系列采访的基础上，本文研究了CoI框架如何支持WBS的有效使用，以在高等教育环境中提供灾害研究课程。研究结果表明，有针对性地解决认知，