[4] Additionally, because of its less hierarchical nature, P2PU activities need not necessarily be Courses; the admin of the learning environment can select from Study Group and Challenge as well as creating their own term.

"[6] Class participants communicate live through technologies such as Skype and IRC as well as asynchronously through the P2PU website, allowing geographically dispersed classmates to have discussions.

OpenCourseWare, instant-feedback exercises and quizzes from Codecademy, and study groups organized by OpenStudy, while P2PU handles central communication such as email and discussion.

[11] The founding members of P2PU are Delia Browne, Neeru Paharia, Stian Haklev, Joel Thierstein and Philipp Schmidt.

[12] Schmidt explained in a video interview that P2PU came to be when he and his friends, later to become his co-founders, attempted to put the championed open educational resources to the test, and try to learn from them.

Schmidt says it was "incredibly hard," and "what's more important is the social aspect, that bond that forms between people, and the content is really just the beginning of the learning experience.