[1] The NetTutor website, trademark, and interface technology are owned by Link-Systems International (LSI), a privately held distance-learning software corporation in Tampa, Florida launched in 1995 with the goal of making academic resources available on the Web.
[3] LSI also develops, maintains, and leases hosted access to the proprietary Java-based whiteboard-style interface (WorldWideWhiteboard) with which NetTutor conducts tutoring.
[4] Over the subsequent years, NetTutor has been packaged with higher education textbooks published by John Wiley and Sons, Pearson, Cengage Learning,[5] and Bedford, Freeman and Worth.
[6] The whiteboard-like nature of the NetTutor interface (today marketed separately by LSI as the WorldWideWhiteboard) offered tools to support subject-specific online chat and to illustrate concepts.
[16] Conversations take place in a shared virtual whiteboard environment equipped with a toolbar for inserting math, chemistry, accounting, or English proofing symbols.
[citation needed] LSI, apparently in response to several controversies[18][19][20] that surround the use of distance education and online tutoring, has taken some measures to assure users of the academic value of NetTutor.