The Open University (OU) is to extend its e-learning scheme and introduce real-time forums.

The university has 200,000 students and already uses e-learning tools, but will introduce new technology to allow real-time interaction between students.

‘Most courses have forums, but this system will be for real-time communication rather than forums where people post at different times,’ said Niall Sclater, director of the OU’s virtual learning environment programme.

‘It will allow students to communicate with each other outside of scheduled sessions,’ he said.

Sclater says the distance learning specialist intends to introduce new systems by the end of the summer.

The technology needs to be scalable so the university can judge student response and increase availability during peak periods, he says.

The university already uses an in-house system that enables audio conferencing and interactive white boards on all of its language courses.

It is considering extending these functions to other courses if the collaborative forum functions prove popular.

Sclater says there is some debate as to whether universities should host these functions themselves or leave it to the students to organise.

‘Tools such as Skype that are not provided by the university can be used by pupils for free anyway,’ he said.

‘Obviously, if you have tutorial that leads to assessment then you have to provide something robust and scalable.

‘But if it is more ad hoc student-to-student communication, then maybe students can just source these things themselves.’