Creating and maintaining rooms

In LiveRoom, users gather together in virtual “rooms”. A room is a gathering place where users come together to talk, share files, conduct presentations, etc. to talk or interact with other LiveRoom users, you must be in the same room.

Rooms are created and managed inside the Desire2Learn Learning Environment. Each room that is created will have a specific list of members who have access to that room. Only users who are on a room’s membership list will be able to see the room on the Room List page, and join it when it is available.

The Room List page

Rooms are managed using the Room List page. The Room List page allows you to join, create and maintain rooms, and to access room archives.

The Room List page always lists personal rooms first, followed by general rooms. The general rooms that appear will depend on the org unit you accessed LiveRoom from; for example, if you access the Room List page from a course homepage, you will see the general rooms for that course.

Regardless of where you access the Room List page from, you will always see all of the personal rooms that you have access to.

When a room is available, its name will be a link that opens the room. To join a room, simply click on its name.

If a room is unavailable, the date that it opens or the date that it ended will be displayed beneath the room’s name.

Access the Room List page

1. Go to My Home or a course homepage.
2. Click the LiveRoom link in the navigation bar.

Types of rooms

In LiveRoom, there are two kinds of rooms that can be created.

• General rooms are created inside a specific org unit and are accessible to everyone enrolled in that unit. In most cases, you will create general rooms within a course offering to incorporate live sessions into the teaching of a course. In some special cases, a general room might also be created at the level of the organization itself, allowing everyone in the organization to access the room. For example, you might create a general room at the organization level to provide an open meeting space for the chess club.
• Personal Rooms  can be created from any org inside Learning Environment and exist outside of any particular org unit. Personal rooms are private because only the people you add to the room’s membership list will be able to see and enter the room. Personal rooms can be accessed from any org within Learning Environment. You might use a personal room as a meeting space for colleagues, as a workspace for an interdisciplinary research group, or as a gathering place for extracurricular activities.

Creating a general (public) room

Creating a general room from within a course automatically adds that room to the course’s room list. By default, everyone enrolled in the course will have access to the room. After a general room has been created, you can restrict access using release conditions and change the default access levels assigned to room members.

Creating a general room at the organization level creates an organization-wide room that everyone enrolled in the organization can access. This can be used to create an open, public room for everyone in the learning community.

Create a general room

1. From your course homepage do one of the following:
   • click the LiveRoom link in the navigation bar.
   • If you want to create a general room for the entire organization, click the LiveRoom link in the navigation bar from My Home.
2. On the Room List page, click the New icon. The New Room page will be displayed.
3. Enter a Room Title. This is the name that will appear in the room list. Course participants will click the title to join your room, so it should be something descriptive and easy to identify.
4. Enter a Description of the room. The description will appear in the room list beneath the title. You can leave the description blank if the title is clear on its own.
5. By default, the Type should be set to General. Keep this setting.
6. If you don't want course participants to view the archives for this room, clear the Make archive available to all users check box. By default, all users have access to the archives. Clearing this check box will mean that only users with the permission See Chat Archives can access the archives.

   Tip  to stress attendance, clear this box.

7. In the Default path to save materials box, enter the location where you want files associated with the room to be stored, or click Browse to select a location from the file system.

   Tip  Enter Rooms/[name of room]/

8. If you want the room to be available for a certain period of time only, select the Start Date or End Date check boxes and enter the appropriate dates and times. Room members whose access level is set to Moderator will still be able to enter the room even outside these dates.
9. Click the Save button at the top of the screen.

Using release conditions to restrict access to general rooms

If you don’t want everyone enrolled in your course to have access to a course room, but want to restrict access to certain course participants only, you can do this by adding release conditions to the room. Only course participants who have met these conditions will be able to see the room; course participants who do not meet the conditions will not see the room on the Room List page.

Note  Even if someone does not meet the release conditions for a room, they will still appear on the Room Members page.

Using release conditions, you can create rooms for groups of users to work on group assignments, create a special remedial help room for users struggling in the course (based on overall grades or quiz results), make a special room for users who have completed advanced topics in the course content, and so on.

Add release conditions to a general room

1. From the page do one of the following:
   • Click the icon beside the name of the room.
   • If you are creating a new room, you will be able to add release conditions from the page after clicking
2. Do one of the following:
   • If you have already created a release condition elsewhere and want to attach it to this room, click in the section at the bottom of the page. Select the conditions) you want to add, and then click Create.
   • If you want to add a new release condition that does not already exist, click in the section at the bottom of the page. Enter the details for the new release condition, and then click Create.
3. Choose whether access to the room is dependent on meeting all or any of your conditions.

The release condition is be added to the list at the bottom of the Room Properties page, in the Additional Release Conditions section. See About Release Conditions for more information.

Remove release conditions from a room

You must do one of the following:

• Click the Delete icon next to the condition you want to remove.
• To delete all release conditions from a room, click the Remove All Conditions icon at the top of the release conditions list.

Creating a personal (private) room

When a personal room is first created, only the room’s creator has access to the room. After saving the room, you can add any other user within your organization to the room’s membership list. When adding room members, you specify the access level you want them to have. You can also flag other room members as owners of the room, allowing them to edit the room and add additional room members.

Create a personal room

1. From , click the LiveRoom link in the navigation bar.
2. On the page, click the New icon. The page will be displayed.
3. Enter a Room Title. This is the name that will appear in the room list. Room members will click the title to join your room, so it should be something descriptive and easy to identify.
4. Enter a Description of the room. The description will appear in the room list beneath the title. You can leave the description blank if the title is clear on its own.

   Tip  because the members you add to your personal room may have room lists very different from your own, and because they may be members of any number of other personal rooms, it is best to use a specific description and a clear title to help distinguish this personal room from any others that might be created.

5. In the Type section, select Personal.
6. If you only want the room’s owners to be able to view the archives, clear the Make archive available to all users check box. By default, all room members will have access to the archives.
7. If you want the room to be available for a certain period of time only, select the Date or End Date check boxes and enter the appropriate dates and times. Room members whose access level is set to moderator will still be able to enter the room even outside these dates.
8. Click the Save button at the top of the screen.

Editing a room

When editing a room, you can change any of the values entered when the room was created, including the room’s title and description, its file path (general rooms only), and its availability. You can also add and remove release conditions.

Note  You cannot change the room’s type (general or personal) once it has been created.

Edit a room

1. From the Room List page, click the Edit Room icon beside the room you want to modify. The Room Properties page will be displayed.
2. Make the changes you want.
3. Click the Save button at the top of the screen.

Deleting a room

Deleting a room will remove it from the system along with all of its archives. Any files uploaded through the room will remain on the server where they were saved; however, all canvases and any annotations made to other resources will be lost. (Deleting files from the system)

If there are any room members currently inside the room, their session will be terminated.

Tip  you can see whether anyone is currently inside a room from the Room Members page.

Delete a room

1. From the Room List page, click the Delete icon at the top of the screen.
2. Select the rooms you want to delete using the check boxes at the left. To select all rooms, select the check box at the top of the list. Only rooms that you are authorized to delete will have check boxes beside them.
3. Click Delete Selected.

Reordering rooms (general rooms only)

You can customize the order in which general rooms appear on the Room List page. This allows you to control the appearance of the list of rooms associated with a specific org unit. For example, you may want to put a course’s lecture room first, followed by tutorial rooms, followed by group assignment rooms. Reordering rooms within an org unit changes their order of appearance for everyone enrolled in that unit.

Note  you cannot change the order in which personal rooms are listed.

Reorder rooms

1. From the Room List page, click the Reorder icon at the top of the screen. The Reorder General Rooms page will be displayed.
2. In the Sort Order box for each room, enter the position on the list where you want the room to appear: enter a ‘1’ for the room that you want to appear at the top of the list, then a ‘2’ for the room you want to appear second, and so on.

   Rooms that are left blank will appear at the bottom of the list, in alphabetical order. If two rooms have the same Sort Order number, they will be listed alphabetically.

3. Click Save. The rooms will be displayed in their new order.
4. Click the Room List icon at the top of the screen to return to the Room List page.