This report of a study visit to North America describes three different computer-mediated conferencing systems (CMCS) and how they are used. The first system is COSY (COnferencing SYstem), at the University of Guelph, Ontario. The second system is EIES (the Electronic Information and Exchange System), at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The third system is PARTICIPATE, developed by Participation Systems, Inc., and in use at the New York Institute of Technology. In Great Britain, each of these systems can be accessed from the Open Univeristy, and the purpose of this visit was to make contacts with educational users of the systems and investigate possible applications of computer-mediated communication for Open University courses. The visit provided useful guidelines for trials of electronic mail and computer-mediated communications in distance education, particularly on courses which already require students and tutors to have home equipment, and/or low population specialist courses where communication between participants is a key element in the learning process. The appendixes consist of: (1) information about on-line conferences on the three systems; and (2) a two-page bibliography listing sources of additional information on each of the systems. (DJR)