[jadmin] Can Jabber replace IRC for an educational institution's distance ed program?

[Shane Beers]

I apologize if this question is redundant, but I have not found any
archive of the mailing lists discussions.

I am an employee at one of my university's distance education
programs. We currently use an IRC server for student chat during
synchronous class sessions, available to them via a tradtional IRC
client or, more commonly, a java-based web frontend (WebMaster
ConferenceRoom 2.0).

Unfortunately, due to the lack of security of IRC, federal educational
policies are forcing us to examine other options.

We are aware that some departments are licensing/purchasing Jabber
servers for this application. However, I have no real idea where to
start looking to accomplish our goals. Essentially we would like our
users to notice as little of a change as possible.

Can Jabber be accessed for IRC chat-room-like conversation via the
web, preferrably through an existing java client? I would imagine that
this has been accomplished in some fashion, somewhere.

Thanks, and again, I apologize if this has been discussed at length before.

Shane Beers