• Distinguished Features

Following features might have been supported by other chat applications but they are not present as a whole

in a single application. These features make our methodology very specific and beneficial to an EL university.

• Separate Lists of Class Participants and Questioners

Our methodology provides two types of lists named List-A and List-B. List-A shows participants of the VC

i.e. list of online students and List-B displays only those students who want to ask a question. List-B is

developed in chronological order i.e. the first student who wants to ask a question, is given a place on the top

of the list and the second student is listed under the previous student and so on. Advantage of List-B is that the

teacher is not disturbed by the students who want to ask a question. They are just listed in the List-B and then

teacher allows them to ask a question as per list order. This feature is not provided by other applications.

• Raising and Dropping Hand

This feature is used by a student enquiring teacher to grant permission for asking a question.

When a student raises hand his/her name is appended to List-B and when a student drops hand his name is

excluded from List-B.

• Controlling and Coordination Mechanism

This mechanism is for teacher to control the VC. In the start, all of the students can just listen or see (text

chat) ongoing conversation between teacher and student. None of the students can use white board, text chat

controls or speak. In order to use white board or ask a question using text or audio chat, a student requires

permission from teacher. In order to allow a student ask a question, teacher selects a student from List-B and

then clicks the ‘Allow’ button. When the teacher clicks the ‘Allow’ button, all components on the student

interface become enable and now a student can ask a question either by audio or text chat mode. Similarly,

teacher has the privileges to block or remove a student. A blocked student means that he has been forcefully

blocked by the teacher to ask a question. These are very important features to control and help in the smooth

running of VC. This mechanism is provided only by the ‘Dimdim’; one of the application.

• White Board

Provision of a white board is very important feature for VC. Our methodology provides this feature to share

such things which can not be typed or got in a verbal communication. For example, some complex

mathematical notations symbols can be easily drawn and communicated using the white board which may be

difficult in other ways.

• Unlimited Users

Other software applications impose restriction on the maximum number of people in a group. For example,

MSN messenger allows 20, Yahoo messenger allows 50 and Skype allows 20 to 200 persons to join a group.

In case of our application there is no limit on maximum number of students to join the VC.