Aims: Making interaction as a key element of teaching and learning process is one of the challenges of the educators and designers of the distance learning courses, particularly the web- based education. One of the preconditions for an effective design of web-based education is to identify the influencing factors on interaction. The aim of this study was to identify the influencing factors on student-lecturer interaction in the web-based education to offer appropriate solutions in order to increase interaction.

Methods: In this qualitative study with qualitative content analysis method, 15 virtual undergraduate and graduate students of the medical sciences faculty and 10 lecturers of virtual education of medical sciences faculties of two universities of Tarbiat Moddares and Tehran were selected, using purposive sampling. The resulting data from each interview were coded and then, the subsequent interview was conducted. Maxqdata 10 software was used for inductive content analysis. Identifying the sub-categories and, finally, the categories was conducted by the researcher herself, based on the resulting data from qualitative content analysis.

Results: 110 primary codes were extracted from data analysis and after merging and overlapping the codes, 8 main categories and 56 sub-categories were obtained as influencing factors on the learner’s interaction with the lecturer.

Conclusion: The influencing factors on the learner’s interaction with the lecturer in the web-based learning environment include technical and instrumental skills, communication skills, commitment and discipline, scientific ability, live audio and video communication, quantity and quality of communication facilities, motivation and attitudes towards virtual education and number of students.