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Defining Chat Settings

  1. The General Tab will open automatically after you’ve clicked to add a chat room. This is where you will define the Chat Room Title which is a mandatory field. 
  2. Additional settings are available within the General tab.
    • Details is where you can name the Contributor (the administrator that is creating the content) and apply a Category.
    • Tags allows you to add tags to your content so that you may easily find content associated with a particular tag. Tags can also aid in your department's curriculum mapping.

      Categories and Tags can be used for searching and organizing content in the course. For example, you could create a Category named “Chapter One” with the tags “heart” and “brain”. This would allow filtering on all content from “Chapter One” or filtering on all content across all chapters related to the “heart” or the “brain.”

    • Location Information could provide students with the location details of the Chat.
    • Calendar Settings allows you to publish the date/time that the Chat will be displayed on the Content Calendar and the What’s New list. Duration sets how long the event will be visible on the Calendar. 

      This does not affect the actual availability of the chat. Availability settings must be set from the Availability Tab.

  3. The chat room will automatically be published in Released mode but can be changed to Draft mode under the Availability Tab which contains the publish and release status of the chat room.
  4. The Availability Tab also allows you to set a Released Date, Expiration Date, and whether or not the chat room should be displayed in Content.
    • Selecting a Released date sets the date/time that the chat room becomes available to students. If the chat room is released and the released date is set to a future date/time then the chat room will not be available until that date/time.
    • The Expiration date sets a date/time in which the chat room becomes unavailable. Once a chat room expires it will no longer be visible to students within Communication.
    • If you want to show the chat in Content you must first submit the chat creation then return and edit the chat. The Show in Course/Site Content checkbox will now be located on the Availability Tab. Click the checkbox to create a content item in Content for the chat.

      This is not available during the creation of the chat room and will only become available if you edit an existing chat room. You can also create the chat from within Content.

  5. All students have access to the chat room unless restrictions are made. The Access Control Tab can be used to set restrictions based on your user list and preset roles.  To enable restrictions, select any of the three Add Restrictions buttons within this tab.
    • Add User Restrictions - click this button to display the User List and Add/Remove specific users to/from the access list.
    • Add Small Group Restrictions - click this button to display the Small Groups List and Add/Remove Small Groups you have created to/from the access list.
    • Add Role Restrictions - click this button to display the Role list and Add/Remove Roles to/from the access list.
  6. The Learning Objectives tab allows you to assign learning objectives to the chat room. Please visit the SOLE Help pages on Learning Objectives to learn more about using this tool.
  7. The Dependent Release Tab allows you to release a chat room based upon the completion of set criteria. For example, you can set the chat room to be released once a user has scored at least an 80% on a previous exam or submitted an assignment.
  8. On the Gradebook Tab there are two ways to link the chat room to the Gradebook. When you click the tab you are first given the option of creating a new Gradebook assignment. To create a new Gradebook assignment you will need to define the following:
    • Maximum Points – Setting a number of maximum points is mandatory even if you do not want to include the chat room grade in the total grade calculation. You must enter points here in order to create a Gradebook assignment but it is not mandatory to use these points in grade calculations.
    • Gradebook Group – If the Gradebook is Grouped than you must use the drop down menu to choose which group the chat room will appear in within the Gradebook. If the Gradebook is not grouped then this will not be an option.
    • Scale - If the Gradebook is set up with Additional Grading Scales than you must use the drop down menu to choose which grading scale will be used to grade this Chat.  Additional Grading Scales must be defined through Gradebook settings.
    • Grading Method – You can grade the assignment by entering points, using a grading scale (drop down menu of letter grades which awards the upper end of the selected percentage range defined within the Gradebook), or using a rubric (must be defined through Gradebook settings).
    • Is Used in Calculations – Uncheck this box to exclude the discussion grade from the final grade calculations. This will still create a Gradebook assignment (column in gradebook). The points are not calculated but are still mandatory so you may enter a random number.
    • Is Extra Credit – Chat room grades can be added to the Gradebook as Extra Credit instead of a regular graded assignment by clicking this checkbox. The Is Used in Calculations box must be checked in order to include the chat room as extra credit.
  9. You may also link the chat room to the Gradebook by selecting an already existing assignment from the Gradebook. The assignment must have been created from within the Gradebook beforehand. To do this, select Attach to existing gradebook assignment and use the drop down menu to select the assignment you wish to link the Chat room to.
  10. You can also detach a chat room from the Gradebook on the Gradebook Tab by placing a check next to the Detach from Gradebook option.

    If you detach a chat from the Gradebook the assignment will still remain in the Gradebook but will be unattached. You will need to delete the Assignment from the Gradebook itself to fully remove it. See the Gradebook Help pages to learn more on how to do this.

  11. The Advanced Settings tab allows you to decide if offline users will be shown in the chat.