Step 1

Click on the link

http://tinyurl.com/ucubu

Or

http://r.bournemouth.ac.uk:84

Step 2

This will take you to this screen. You will need to register as first time user. You can use any user name you like and make up an email address, as it won’t be used for anything. However use a name that others will recognise. All communications between yourself and anyone else in the system will be secret and private, unless you use the general channel or deliberately make or join a public channel.

Step 3

Fill in the fields with your own name, some email and a password that you can remember.

Step 4

You’ll then see this screen. Register your username.

Step 5

You are now in the system and can see the boring default screen (that I haven’t changed at all, as I’ve not customised the system)

Step 6

If you click on the “#general” tab you’ll see the general channel. This is the only public channel at the moment, unless anyone makes another one.

Step 7

You can create a channel by clicking on the icon at the top right of the side bar on the left hand side (the square with a pen in it).

A channel is rather like an email thread, but unlike an email thread it can’t be copied to anyone else. People have to be invited to join the channel by the owner. I am the admin of the system, but even I can’t see nor read any of the content in a private channel unless I’ve been invited into it by the owner. I can however see that a channel exists and I can delete it if I’m asked to. I can also remove users from the system if required. Once deleted the content is permanently lost and can’t be recreated.

Step 8

Create a new private channel and invite users. Only invited users will know that the channel exists, and only invited users can post to it and see the messages. Private means private.

Step 9

Start typing messages.

That’s all there is to basic usage really. The icons at the top should be fairly self explanatory and with a bit of exploration you can find out more. You can see the members of the channel and the owner can invite more members to join. No one else can do that.

Keep a tab open on the browser or install the rocket chat app on an android or iphone. The email option is disabled for security, so that is the only way to see messages. You can notify someone that a message is there yourself by email if you want to jog someone into looking, but they need to have a log on to see it and need to be a member of the private channel.

If there is any additional worry about content let me know. As admin I can delete anything on it and remove users. Anything I remove will then vanish without any trace at all. I can even nuke the whole server in a real emergency and all content will be scrubbed forever and dissapear into a black hole. There is nothing to see on any hard drive, as all the content is held inside an encrypted docker container. It can’t be copied through any back door.