The Chat Room is a real-time, text-only chat tool within a site. The Chat Room tool can be used for synchronous, unstructured conversations among site participants who are logged into the site at the same time. Only participants enrolled in the same site may chat using the Chat Room.

The Chat Room tool supports multiple rooms and the default room can be set by the instructor or site administrator. For example, instructors may choose to create an "Online Office Hours" chat room for student questions and answers. Chat rooms for student groups can also be set up as a space to collaborate among group members across distances.

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.

Messages posted to the Chat Room tool are archived for participants to view later.  An instructor or site administrator can select how many archived messages display in a chat room.  There is also an option (enabled by default) to allow each site participant to change their view of archived messages.

The Chat Room tool does not provide a way to chat privately. By default, all messages are visible to all participants.

When this tool is added to a site, a Recent Chat Messages section that lists new messages is available on the site's Home page.

Note: For instructions on how to add this or any other tool to your site, see How do I add tools to my site?