Digital Showcase: Let’s Chat by Will Barratt

By Will Barratt
Indiana State University
http://wbarratt.indstate.edu

Posted: January, 2004 Student Affairs Online, vol. 5 no. 1 - Winter 2004

Some basics about chat and instant messaging (IM) technology

At its most basic IM software lets you write back and forth with someone else having a text-based conversation with a person who has the same software. IM is point-to-point communication: you and someone else, your computer and another computer. While current IM software can do a lot more than manage text conversations, point-to-point text messaging is IM’s basic and most important element. Using IM requires that each user install the IM software, have a user name and know the user name of the person they want to chat with. If the other person is on-line and their software is active, then the two people can chat.

Why use IM on campus? Students use IM, and IM is one more way to engage students and meet students’ needs using student oriented communication technology. Not using IM emphasizes the separation of student life and the Office of Student Life. Student affairs offices have office hours, office addresses, office phone numbers, and office fax numbers, but very few have office IM user names. IM in an office is like an office phone number—one way to make initial contact or to get basic information. Imagine for a minute having office IM hours the same as office telephone hours. IM is a constant part of many students’ lives that has not yet been integrated into student affairs practice. Accommodating our student affairs practices to students’ lives has always been a better idea than assimilating students to our practices.

To facilitate a decision about using IM ask students three questions: How often are you on-line with IM running? How much do you use IM during the day? Which IM software do you use? A second decision strategy is to walk through a residence hall and look at students’ computer screens noting which software is active. A third alternative is to start a pilot IM program in an office with lots of telephone-based student contact.

IM technology began 1996 when ICQ (“I seek you”) was first released. Readers should remember that this was 25 “web years” ago. IM quickly grew in popularity, and many competing brands of IM software soon emerged. Unlike E-mail, in which you can send messages between different brands of software, IM only works between people using the same software; AIM to AIM, Yahoo! Messenger to Yahoo! Messenger. While some programs currently provide ways to chat between different software, multiplatform software is not yet a mature technology.

A word is in order here about chat rooms and web-based chat. IM requires that you contact a specific person using the registered username. Chat rooms use a web-based interface in which you can use whatever username you want for that chat session. IM users can create chat rooms by invitation, much like a conference call, but these multi-user rooms disappear once the conversation is over. Web-based chat uses a web page as the chat technology and may or may not require additional software.

Intermediate chat – using IM effectively

Selecting IM software for your student affairs office is simple: ask students what IM software they most commonly use. This approach guarantees student accessibility. Start with the most popular IM even though you eventually may need to use two or even three types of IM in order to engage all of your students. There are good technological and pedagogical reasons to use non-popular software, but students will continue to use their favorite brand of IM no matter what campus IT professionals install.

Using IM in student affairs offices will require some central planning by senior management. Unfortunately, senior management is often least likely to use IM or to know much about it. Software choices need to be made in concert with campus IT staff and engaging students will need to be kept in mind as the primary consideration. Accommodating students is the key decision criteria, not installing your favorite software. Consistent usernames need to be chosen; isucampusactivities is easier to use and remember than boh1066. Identifying whether support staff or professional staff will answer the office IM needs careful consideration. Advertising the availability of IM requires more than publishing the office username on the Contact Us section of the web page.

The downside of using IM in an office is that IM takes time. Busy staff in an already busy office may not have the time during their day to IM with an endless stream of student messages. The already busy receptionist may not be able to reasonably manage phone, E-mail, IM, and visitors. This is a serious consideration and must be weighed against the advantages of engaging students. Only by using and evaluating IM will any office know its advantages, its disadvantages, and how much time it really occupies in a work day.

Individual student affairs professionals using IM present different issues than an office with an IM username. As an individual user IM is a way to keep in contact with students, colleagues, and friends near and far. Young professionals are often proficient in IM and use it as part of their personal and professional life chatting with students on their campus and colleagues near and far. Residence hall staff use IM for all manner of contact with students because of widespread student use.

On the technology side there are at least two important points. First, IM software is upgraded and changed regularly so it is a dynamic environment. Be prepared to have things look different with each new release. Second, there are different features in different IM software. IM software typically has address books to keep usernames, supports file sharing, and is integrated with web sites, weather, news, sports, stock quotes, and a myriad of Internet resources leading the user to free or commercial services offered by the IM brand. Address books, your list of personal contacts, are stored in a central server so that when you log in from anywhere, your address list is always presented to you.

Below is a quick description of the most popular IM software with one addition. The basic version of IM software is free to the user, contains advertising and is a gateway to other free and for fee features.

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) (http://www.aim.com) – AIM is the most popular IM software among students. AIM has all of the usual integrations with E-mail, news, weather, sports, etc., and supports multi-person conferences but not voice or video conferencing. Forwarding IM messages to cell phone text messaging (mobile chat) is available. Available alone or packaged with Netscape, also owned by AOL.

Yahoo! Messenger (http://messenger.yahoo.com) – The most technologically advanced mass market IM is integrated with Yahoo E-mail, file sharing, news, weather, sports, etc. and has the best collection of emoticons of popular IM software. Supports PC to phone (for a fee) multi-user conferences, video, and voice conferencing and is an excellent platform for on-line meetings and classes. It is well integrated with the full array of Yahoo services and products.

MSN Messenger (http://messenger.msn.com) – Integrated with other Microsoft products and services, MSN Messenger supports multi-user conversations, file sharing, audio and video conferencing, and integrates with NetMeeting.

ICQ (http://web.icq.com) – The original and perhaps most popular IM in the world and the least advanced technologically. ICQ is owned by AOL and has a very large number of loyal users. Download.com lists in excess of 240,000,000 downloads of the current ICQ software. Allows chat with AIM users and has video conferencing available.

NetMeeting (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting/) – While not designed as IM software, NetMeeting is integrated with Windows; if you have Windows you have NetMeeting. Designed for web cameras and web conference broadcasts, it contains features to allow program sharing, file transfers, chat, and whiteboards in addition to video and voice communication. Has the ability to host a meeting. NetMeeting uses computer IP address rather than user name and password.

Advanced chat

One obvious problem with IM is the lack of standards which force people to use different software for different friends. Trillian (http://www.trillian.cc/) attempts to overcome some of these barriers and is reviewed well. Jabber (http://www.jabber.org/) is in development and emerging as a contender in the area of multi-system software.

An emerging business trend is in-house IM software. Campus based systems may contain IM capabilities, such as GroupWise Messenger, but IM may not be enabled on a campus or may not be available to students. There are advantages to in-house IM for security reasons and the lack of advertising but the lack of student use is the key drawback.

IM message security varies with IM technology. With minimal effort IM can be made secure and confidential. The issue of user authentification, knowing who is really on the other end of the conversation, will always remain unless the campus issues usernames and passwords and everyone keeps them secure.