Abstract: The use of synchronous learning in online education in recent years has rapidly increased due to its important advantages over asynchronous learning, such as immediacy, spontaneous feedback, live time interaction and collaboration, and connectedness. At the same time, there have been huge technological advances in synchronous tools that hold great potentials for promoting active learning online. Despite its varied benefits and instructional potentials, synchronous learning has received much less research attention, as compared with asynchronous e-Learning. Practitioners that consider using and designing synchronous e-Learning are in urgent need of guidance. This study presents the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Framework for designing synchronous e-Learning that aims to promote active learning. Along with the CoI Framework, exemplars of synchronous e-Learning in higher education will be discussed as well as the underlying design elements that have been embedded in these examples.