Chat Room

Overview
Reading Chat Room messages
Posting Chat Room messages
Deleting Chat Room messages
Adding, editing or deleting chat rooms
Default permissions for the Chat Room tool

Additional materials

Open a pdf document containing step-by-step instructions with screen shots.

Overview: What it does

You can use the Chat Room tool for real-time, unstructured conversations among site participants who are signed on to the site at the same time.

Instructors can easily create an "Online Office Hours" chat room for student questions and answers. Dispersed collaboration groups can use Chat as a space to have conversations across distances or catch up with conversations that they may have missed.

Key concepts

Multiple rooms: Site leaders can use Options to add rooms to accommodate more than one discussion. Participants can click Change Room to access other discussions.

Display: Changes you make in Options also apply to how the Chat Room features appear to site participants.

Things to consider

The Chat Room tool alerts users to other participants who have entered the same chat room. This way, users know who is available to talk.
All chat messages are archived and can be read by any site participant.
The Chat Room tool does not provide a way to chat privately. By default, all messages are visible to all participants. However, you can remove read access for a particular role, and thereby for all participants with that role, by modifying the Chat Room permissions. (back to top)

Reading Chat Room messages

To read messages in the Chat Room, do the following:

In the menubar, click Chat Room. You will enter the default Chat Room specified by the Site Leader. To change Chat Rooms, click Change Room at the top and select the room you would like to change to.
To see who is presently in the Chat Room, look under "Users in Chat" on the right side of the screen.
Messages appear in chronological order, with the most recent at the bottom. Messages will always identify the sender.
To hide or display the date or time messages were posted, select the appropriate option from the "View" drop-down list: Time Only, Date and Time, Date Only, or Neither Date or Time.
Options for the number of messages to be viewed are set by the site owner. If you have the full options available, you will be able to choose between:
- All messages
- Last 10 messages
- Past 3 days
- Show no message history (back to top)

Posting Chat Room messages

To post a message, follow these steps:

In the menubar, click Chat Room.
In the text box at the bottom of the window, type your message, and then click Add message. Note: No one will be able to see your message until you click Add message. The default permission settings allow a message to be removed by the person who wrote it or by someone with a Subject Coordinator or Project Owner role.
To discard a message that you haven't sent yet, click Clear. (back to top)

Deleting Chat Room messages

To delete a Chat Room message that you have sufficient permission to delete, simply click the rubbish bin icon next to the posting, and then click Delete.

Note: If you don't see a rubbish bin icon, you don't have permission to delete the message. (back to top)

Adding, editing, or deleting chat rooms

Note: To complete the procedures in this section, you must be assigned a role having the necessary permissions. To determine your role, see Participant roles in Permissions, Roles & Sites. For a basic understanding of roles and permissions, see Permissions, Roles & Sites: Overview.

If you have sufficient permissions, you can use the Chat Room tool to add, edit, or delete chat rooms within a site. Also, you can choose which room loads by default when participants click Chat Room.

Adding a Room

To add a room, follow these steps:

In the menubar, click Chat Room.
Click Options.
Click Add Room.
Enter the chat room title and description in the text boxes.
Use the radio buttons to select how many previous messages to display.
Click Update Options. Your new room will now appear under "Manage Rooms" in the list of available chat rooms. To make your new room appear by default when participants click Chat Room, click Set as Default.

Editing a room

To edit a room's title, description, or number of messages displayed, follow these steps:

In the menubar, click Chat Room.
Click Options.
Under the name of the room you wish to edit, click Edit.
Change the chat room title or description, or use the radio buttons to select how many previous messages to display.
When you are finished, click Update Options.

Note: To change the room that loads by default when participants click Chat Room, in Options, under "Manage Rooms", find the room and click Set as Default.

Deleting a room

To delete a room, follow these steps:

In the menubar, click Chat Room.
Click Options.
Under the name of the room you wish to delete, click Delete.
Under "Deleting chat room", to confirm the deletion, click Delete or click Cancel to keep the room. (back to top)

Default permissions for the Chat Room tool

The default Subject site permission settings for the Chat Room tool are as shown below. These can only be altered by a site member who has appropriate permissions. (The term "channel" refers to a Chat room.)

delete.own = able to delete one's own messages

new.channel / delete.channel / revise.channel = able to create / delete / edit a chat room