OWL-Space

The OWL-Space Guide

Chat Tool

The Chat Room tool creates chat rooms on your OWL-Space site where communicate simply in real time.

The Chat Room tool main page shows three tabs (Options, Change Room, and Permissions) at the top, with the current chat room beneath them (which will be whatever chat room is set to default when you first sign in to OWL-Space). At the top of the chat room display are two selection boxes, labeled View, which allow you to choose what date and time information is displayed, and how recent of messages are displayed. In the first box, choose whatever combination of date and time you would like to see displayed with each message (this shows the time the message was entered into the chat room). In the second box, you can choose to see either all messages that have been entered in this chat room, or only those from the last three days.

Below this are the chat messages themselves on the left side, and a list of all the members of your site who are currently using this chat room on the right. At the very bottom is a text box where you can type a message to enter into the chat room. Type your message, and then press either the Enter key on your keyboard or the Add message button below the text box to enter your message in the chat room. Press the Clear button to cancel your message and clear the text box.

The Options tab gives you the ability to add a room (Add Room), go to the Permissions tab, Edit or Delete any of your chat rooms using the links below them in the list, as well as set any room to be the default room (if it is not already). Pressing the Back to room button will return you to the current chat room. Clicking on the name of any room in the list will take you to that chat room, making it the current chat room.

The Change Room tab is identical to the Options tab for instructors. For students, it is the only tab visible, and provides only the ability to switch between different chat rooms by clicking on the chat room name.

New for '07-'08

You can now create multiple chat rooms with the Add Room function under Options or Change Room. Each room now has its own set of options for how many message are displayed (formerly under the options tab; now can be set when adding or editing a room). Members of the site are able to change to different chat rooms by using the Change Room tab. The room that is set as the default room (by clicking on Set as Default in the list of rooms under the Options or Change Room tabs) is the room that users will be taken to when first entering the Chat Room tool during an OWL-Space session.

The Permissions tab allows you to adjust what types of members are allowed to read, enter messages, delete messages, delete the chat room, create new chat rooms, and revise existing chat rooms. Press the Save button after making any changes.

When adding a new chat room or editing an existing one, you can create the name of the room (Title), a short Description of the room (what it should be used for, etc.), and set the default viewing option (show all messages, show the last X messages, or show message from the past X days; where you can change the numbers for X). If the box marked Allow site participants... is checked, then your members will be able to switch between the default viewing option and viewing all messages when in this chat room.