A chat room is a real-time version of the message board. The Guild’s Distance Education Program chat site will be used to supplement the ongoing interchange taking place between students, among students, between students and instructors on the message boards and by phone and fax. The chat site will allow all students and instructors to meet on-line at predetermined times during key points of the course to discuss course progress, pose questions and discuss pertinent course issues.

 A chat site will allow for spontaneous and frank interchange between all students and instructors. Though the chat site is not an integral part of the Guild’s Distance Education Program, it will serve the important task of providing yet another way for brewers in the program to build bridges with fellow students, extract crucial information from instructors, and maintain the contact and interaction that will mimic the dynamism of the physical classroom.