The structure, features and policies of most VLE implementations tend to perpetuate the traditional instructivist models of education. The primary purpose of the systems is to organise course content for transmission to enrolled students. Only some VLEs provide shared file areas and collaborative facilities like chat and discussion forums. In universities, VLEs often act as secure gateways to digital indexes and research journals. Unless students manually copy materials out of the VLE walled garden, all traces of their learning experience through the VLE are lost once they complete their studies.