EMBEDDING COMPUTER CONFERENCING INTO UNIVERSITY TEACHING ROBIN MASON 1 * and PAUL BACSICH 2 1 Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, England and 2 Formerly of Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, England (Received 1 February 1997; accepted 1 November 1997) AbstractÐThis paper analyses the experiences and experiments of the U.K. Open University in the use of computer conferencing over 10 years. It provides a framework for considering educational uses of the medium, as well as describing several innovative applications. Highlights of the main issues involved in implementing this technology are given. The paper focuses on the twin questions of generalizing from OU experience and scaling up use of the system across a whole institution. # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved INTRODUCTION The Open University (OU) has been using computer conferencing for over 10 years as a com- munications medium with students and tutors. Early pilots with tutors in 1986 soon gave way to a large scale trial of the medium on a second level undergraduate course using the conferen- cing system, CoSy, with an in-house front end system to provide o-line working. Other courses began using the system on an optional basis for students and tutors who had the appropriate equipment. The Open Business School was the next to adopt the medium and began to integrate it into several of their MBA courses. By 1990 about 2000 students were using CoSy as part of their course, to communicate with their tutor and with other students. Through the auspices of the European-funded JANUS project, managed from the OU, a new windows-based system called FirstClass, was introduced and trialled on an experimental course on renewable energy. The success of this course, and particularly of the collaborative learning activities which FirstClass supported, led to a range of other innovative courses adopting the FirstClass strategy: international courses, a ``virtual'' summer school and support for continental European students. Soon, a second course was transferred from CoSyÐthis time a regularly presented short ``online'' course for teachers wanting to learn about the medium of computer conferencing. Finally, the Academic Computing Service agreed in 1994 to take over the service of providing a FirstClass system for undergraduate coursesÐthe largest of which is the PGCE (PostGraduate Certi®cate of Education). The JANUS project team continues to oer a system for experimental use and several courses continue to use the old CoSy system with the addition of a commercial front-end. By 1995, about 5000 students were using conferencing each year, of which about 25% used FirstClass. The 1996 OU academic year saw the number using FirstClass spiralling up to 13 000, as a large foundation course in Technology began to use the medium. The Academic Computing Service estimated that a further 7000 students would want to access the network for their own uses, taking the 1996 support requirement up to 20 000. In short, the OU has ``gradu- ated'' from pilots and trials to large scale take-up; the medium is now embedded into the culture (although by no means into all of its courses). This paper provides an overview of OU experience in using computer conferencing, based on a range of evaluation studies carried out on courses over ten years [1±5]. It also describes how Computers Educ. Vol. 30, No. 3/4, pp. 249±258, 1998 # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0360-1315/98 $19.00 + 0.00 PII: S0360-1315(97)00068-7 *Corresponding author: Dr Robin Mason, e-mail: r.d.mason@open.ac.uk; Fax: 01908 653744. 249