The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a computerized teaching assistant (CTA) on student interaction, student satisfaction, and retention rates of students in a distance course. The CTA is humanoid and speaks in a human voice from recorded sound clips, to give the student the feeling that he/she is interacting with a person, not a computer program. It has been programmed to answer frequently asked questions (FAQs), provide positive feedback and encouragement to students, and to initiate contact with inactive students. [For complete proceedings, see ED490093.]