The paper examines the role of social factors in online education and their effect on a successful outcome of an online learning process. Being a relatively young trend in the field of education, online learning/teaching is still often skeptically looked upon by some people who argue that the quality of this kind of education often does not meet the needs and expectations due to various reasons. What is the role of social interaction in this respect? How can social factors foster or hinder a success of an online course? Interestingly, according to Berge, (2005) ‘social interactions are second from the top in a list of the eight greatest barriers to online learning.’ Other studies show that building a proper learning environment constitutes one of the significant challenges for a facilitator and it can largely determine the learning outcome. The paper intends to look at the issue from both, participants’ and facilitators’ perspective and study the importance of social interactions by using a case study. It looks at the actual use of different tools and activities aiming at encouraging building and developing an online community throughout a course. It also intends to analyse the social behaviour of the participants and comprises a survey of their reflections on the experience, expectations, preferences and challenges as a member of the online community.