The Story of Classmate.

Classmate is a web-based tutoring system that uses student tutors and faculty members to answer student's questions live or via t-mail on the net. This site was developed for the use of college students across Illinois by the Classmate staff at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois.

The Parkland staff is being assisted by researchers from South Suburban College outside of Chicago. The Parkland staff of programmers includes the following dedicated individuals: Seong Bae, Chaithra Pabbathi, and John Mao.The Graphic Designer for the sight is Elizabeth Birky who also works with Intern Michael Bowers. The team is headed by the Classmate Director, Dr. Marsh Wilkinson Jones.

CLASSMATE is the brainchild of the virtual learning departments at Parkland College (Champaign, Illinois) and South Suburban College (south of Chicago, Illinois). South Surburban College wrote the original grant (IVC) and is now joining with Parkland to continue development and to maintain the tutor program. The need for a web tutor is great since thousands of students are now learning online or they simply do not have an opportunity to discuss their studies with peer tutors at their colleges. Most of the tutoring services currently available are costly and not very reliable.

Once students have registered and logged on to Classmate students can communicate with tutors both asynchronously (T-Mail, that is, it only works within the Classmate system) and synchronously with the use of live chat rooms In addition, students can query their peers regarding classes on the Classmate bulletin board.

For additional information, please e-mail the Classmate Project Coordinator, Dr. Marsh Wilkinson Jones.