How can two academic researchers, an unknown number of peer reviewers, and the editor (and any copyeditors) not notice that the first sentence of the article is redundant?
That would be this sentence:
(Emphasis mine)
Ugh.
That would be this sentence:
The usage of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been widely used in higher education as a teaching and learning tool for both blended and online courses in numerous disciplines.
(Emphasis mine)
Ugh.