There is a body of evidence supporting the claim that informal interactions in educational environments have positive effects on learning. In order to increase the opportunities of informal interaction in online courses, an instant messaging tool, called CENTERS, was developed and integrated into online learning environments. This tool provides the students with awareness of the presence of others connected to the course at the same time and allows them to interact by means of two communication facilities: instant messaging and one-to-one chat. To evaluate the reliability of CENTERS as a tool to promote interaction, we studied the performance and use of the system during one graduate and three undergraduate online courses. The participants were 43 students and 4 teachers. Analyses of the logs show that the system was used mainly for socializing but that it also supported the students' learning activities. The responses to the questionnaires with regard to the students' perceived use of the system were in agreement with their actual use as registered in the logs. The high level of interaction showed by most participants, as well as their willingness to take more online courses using CENTERS, led us to conclude that instant messaging can be successfully integrated and used within online learning environments.
Contreras‐Castillo et al. (Mon,) studied this question.