The Chat Room feature of StudOn enables you to communicate directly and synchronously with your students via your own chat rooms (e.g., within a specific course) or public chat rooms.
Functions
- A Main Room is available for all users to view previous discussions and contribute to them.
- It is possible to create additional chat rooms (i.e. "Private Rooms") which are only accessible to invited participants.
- The chat history is logged. This allows course administrators to view the communication history of a specific session or day.
- The present participants can be addressed directly or indirectly through "whispering".
- Should a user be absent, they may still be invited to the chat room by searching for their username.
- Participants can be permanently banned from the chat.
Use Cases
- Teachers are able to respond to students' inquiries via virtual office hours, which can be established through the chat room.
- It can serve as a platform for discussions between students and teachers.
- The chat can be used to organize tutorials during which students can collaborate on tasks, receive assistance and provide support to one another.
- Students can participate in brainstorming sessions to jointly develop creative ideas, solutions, or suggestions on a specific topic.
Example
Instructions
- To create a new chat room, select the "Chat Room" option from the "Add New Item" drop-down menu.
- Subsequently, a new page opens. To proceed, select "Option 1: Create New Chat Room". Please enter a title and, optionally, a description. Then, click "Add Chat Room".
- Once the chat room has been created, you will be immediately directed to the "Settings" tab:
- Allow Anonymous Login: Please note that people who do not have a StudOn account cannot participate in the chat. The rights settings must first be configured accordingly. To do so, please contact studon@fau.de.
- Allow Custom User Names: To permit the participants of the chat to create their own username, please activate the relevant checkbox.
- Enable History: In order to display any previously written messages when entering the chat room, it is necessary to activate the relevant checkbox.
- Number of Past Messages: Please enter the number of messages that should be displayed. The input of "0" will disable the display of past messages in the chat room, while the history will still be retained.
- Allow Private Rooms: To permit users of the chat function to create a Private Room, please ensure that the relevant checkbox is activated.
- For the chat to become available for all participants, please select the checkbox labelled "Online".
- Click “Save”.