Chat

The Chat tool allows you to engage in real-time text-based discussions with students and colleagues.

Types of Chats

There are two types of chats that can be created with the Chat tool.

General chats are public chats visible to everyone enrolled your class. General chats allow you to incorporate chat discussions into the teaching of a course since they will automatically be open to all students enrolled in the course.

Personal chats are private chats visible only to users who have been added to the chat’s participants list. Personal chats are ideal for keeping in touch with friends and colleagues or for student clubs and other groups whose members do not share a single org unit.

Personal chats can be permanent or temporary. You can use temporary personal chats to quickly gather with other users for an impromptu discussion, while permanent better suited for recurring or frequent meetings of the same group of people.

Accessing the Chat Tool
To access the Chat tool, click the Chat link on the navigation bar. The Available Chats page is displayed.


This page lists all of the chats accessible in your course. From here you can enter a chat, create new chats, view chat archives, and edit or delete existing chats.


The Course Chats section lists all general chats created. (For example, if you click the Chat link from a course home page, you will see all the general chats created inside that course offering.) The Current Participants column shows the number of participants currently inside each general chat.

Personal Chats are listed in the bottom section of the page. You will always see all of the personal chats you have access to regardless of which course you accessed the page from. (Whether you click the Chat link from My Home or from a course home page, you will see the same list of personal chats.)

The participants who have access to each personal chat are listed beneath the chat description.
Participants currently inside the chat are listed in bold green type.

Note: Even if a participant changes their name inside a personal chat, their default name will still be listed on the Available Chats page.

Chatting
To enter a chat, simply click its name on the Available Chats page. The chat interface is displayed:

Managing Chats


Creating a General Chat
General chats are created within a course and will only be accessible from the course in which they are created. Before creating a general chat, make sure to access the Chat tool from the appropriate course home page.

1. Click the Chat link in the navigation bar. The Available Chats page displays.

2. Click the Create Chat button. The Create Chat page displays.

3. Select General Chat and click Next. The Create General Chat page displays.

4. Enter a Chat Title and a Description of the chat.

5. Click Create. The Available Chats page displays, with your newly created chat in the chat list.


Creating a Personal Chat

You can create a personal chat from any course, and you will be able to access it from all other course home page you have access to.

1. Click the Chat link in the navigation bar. The Available Chats page displays.

2. Click the Create Chat button. The Create Chat page displays.

3. Select Personal Chat and click Next. The Create Personal Chat page displays.

4. Enter a Chat Title for the chat.
5. If you want the chat to be “permanent” (to exist until it is deleted), select the Persistent checkbox. If you leave this box empty, the chat will be removed from the system after a period of inactivity of more than 20 minutes. You might leave this box empty if you are creating a temporary room for an impromptu discussion with friends or colleagues, and do not want to reuse the same room again in the future.
6. Enter a Description of the chat.

Tip: Because users may have any number of personal chats on their Available Chats page, it is a good idea to enter a detailed description to help them identify the room, since you have no way of knowing what other rooms they might have access to with similar names.
7. Click Next. The Chat Details page displays.


At this point your new chat has been created, but you are the only person who can see it. A
Participant List section displays at the bottom of the page. You can use this area to add other users to the chat.


Managing Chat Participants (Personal Chats Only)

Personal chats are invisible to anyone who is not on the chat’s Participant List. You can add and remove chat participants from the Participant List section of the Chat Details page.

You can access the Participant List for an existing chat by clicking the Edit Chat icon beside the chat on the Available Chats page. (Note that only the chat’s creator can access the Participant List.)
If you are creating a new chat, the Participant List will appear after you enter a title for the chat and click the Next button.

To add participants

1. Click the Add link at the top of the Participant List section. The Add Chat Participant(s) pop-up displays.

2. If you know the user name of the person you want to add, select Add Someone You Know and
enter their user name.
3. If you want to add users enrolled in the same course offerings as you, select Add Classmate(s) and choose a course offering from the drop-down list. All users enrolled in that course will be listed. Select the users you want to add to the chat.
4. Click the Add button. The user(s) will be added to the chat.
5. You can continue adding other users, or click Cancel to close the pop-up.

The Add Chat Participant(s) page

To remove participants

1. In the Participant List section, select the participant(s) you want to remove from the chat using the check boxes at the left.
2. Click the Remove link at the top of the list.

Editing an Existing Chat

The Chat Details page allows you to change a chat’s properties (Title, Description, etc.). For personal chats, you can also add and remove participants from the Chat Details page (see above.)

Note: Personal chats can only be edited by the chat’s creator.

1. In the org unit in which you created the chat (for General chats) or in any org unit (for Personal chats), click the Chat link in the navigation bar. The Available Chats page displays.


2. Click the Edit Chat icon beside a chat. The Edit General Chat page (for General chats) or Chat
Details page (for Personal chats) displays.

3. Make the required changes.
4. Click the Update button. The changes are saved.

Deleting a Chat

Note: Personal chats can only be deleted by the chat’s creator.

1. In the course in which you created the chat, click the Chat link in the navigation bar. The Available Chats page displays.

2. Click the Delete Chat icon to the right of the chat.

3. Click OK in the confirmation message.