Internet Relay Chat (RFC1459) (a.k.a IRC) is a well known simple text communication and conferencing technology that have existed for years. It evolved from several earlier technologies from the pre-Internet age. The modern IRC system was develped by Jakko Oikaren, a graduate student at University of Oulu, Finland.

IRC was used as a communication medium between computer researchers across universities. It was used as a medium for them to share their discoveries with other people and as a way for collaboration beween them. In Malaysia, IRC was much touted as a place for idle chat, flirt, and wasting time. This might be due to the media spreading IRC as a technology for that. This caused a bad identity for IRC in Malaysia while the technology itself is simply simple text transfer between users.

IRC, as a technology, if utilized properly, can provide great benefit for an educational institute. Its simple and real-time nature made it an effective communication medium for students, lecturers and other personnels to communicate and share information. The channel system of IRC allows people of the same interest to gather together and communicate between them similarly in a room environment.