The initial aim was to reduce the isolation of these students and to improve access and communication between students, tutors and University resources. Field trials were conducted on a prototype system by a pilot group of about 20 external students in the first semester of 1992, and full scale operation commenced in semester 2. In the second semester of 1994, the system was made available to all ECU students, both internal and external. The Virtual Campus system has been implemented to augment the traditional print-based medium. Users connected to the system are on a wide variety of platforms including Macintosh, Amiga, IBM, clones, laptops, minis and mainframes.
Overseas students use Internet.
Services on the Virtual Campus Mail Participants can exchange electronic mail messages with anyone else on the system or on the Internet, as this option has full Internet mail capabilities. This would include tutors and other students. Everyone has their own mailbox address on the system which ensures that mail is private. The General Chat area can be used for socialising at any time. Any number of chat rooms can be created to become the virtual equivalent of board rooms, class rooms and common rooms.