Meeting the needs of students in a continually evolving education environment has created new challenges and opportunities for Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Institutions. Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) across the nation are designing new programs to promote students' achievements and graduation. The technological developments provide new teaching strategies and tools used to promote learning. The constant growth of varied technological tools has a great influence on ODL settings to design such online programmes as an alternative way to serve diverse student populations. Online teaching and learning is gaining popularity among ODL institutions as an alternative mode of teaching and learning, as it provides instant access to learning material as well as interaction with fellow students anytime and anywhere in the world. However, it is essential that Teaching Assistants (TA's) connect with students to provide students with the necessary support throughout their learning experience. This paper draws from the literature on asynchronous learning, interviews with TA's and the authors' own experiences on the differences of online facilitation and its challenges as experienced by TA's. Although facilitation of online programmes is evolving fast in developing countries, the author concludes that online facilitation is empowering but there is a great demand for acquisition of new skills for both lecturers as facilitators of learning within the institution and the TA's who provide student support. [For the complete Volume 12 proceedings, see ED597979.]