discussion room for students and faculty

We are working on a project which is meant for an campus education. Here we are implementing an discussion room for faculty and students where they both can interact and student can ask queries online. We are working on this service to implement for them.
I need an idea by which we can start our work. I need some idea for reference books or web links or any previous project from where i can get an idea.

You are something like a chat room ? or i would rather say one-to-one chat room ?

yes it is too implement chat room.
it would require both like one to one & on to many ..

Well, you can use a third party open source tool i.e. JChat OR you can implement one yourself if you have time

Regards,

Shailendra

thanks for your reply.
I will have a look at them and get to you back.