Cyclone III Starter Kit- PC communication

Hi everyone,

although I'm a little bit in VHDL, I'm a complete newbe in Altera's cyclone and nois II. Because of that I have a question: is it possible to communicate to PC using this board and Noise II? I mean, is it possible to send sth (the instruction) to cIII through USB (or is it for programming purpose only) or JTAG, and receive what I want to know in answer. Would it be complicated to do so? I have to add I don't have the board yet so I can't try it myself.