In your Moodle course, you are able to add resources (files, folders, links to websites etc.), and activities (forums, quizzes, lesson etc.) by using the “Add and activity or Resource” facility.
Before you can add resources and activities to your course, you must first click the ‘Turn editing on‘ button located in the upper right hand corner (fig. 1)

With editing switched on, you will see the ‘Add a Resource or Activity‘ link in each topic (fig. 2).

After clicking on it you will be presented with a list of activities and resources. If you select an activity or resource, a description of the selected item is given on the right of the panel. Select the ‘Chat‘ activity and then click the ‘Add‘ button (fig. 3)

In the General settings (fig. 4), the name of the chat room (required field) will be the link for the students to click on to join the chat. It is a good idea to have a descriptive name in this field.

If needed, use ‘Next chat time‘ (fig 4.1) to schedule further chat sessions. These will appear in the calendar so students know the schedule, while allowing them to access the chat room at any time.

The Repeat sessions (fig. 4.2) provides tutors with the following options:

• Don’t publish any chat times: there are no set times and students are welcome to chat at any time.
• No repeats – publish the specified time only: only the next chat time will be published. This could be used to schedule special events or meetings or simply to help learners identify a common time in which they can expect to find other learners in the chat room.
• At the same time every day: Daily chats are useful for scheduling daily office hours or work sessions with learners.
• At the same time every week: This setting will schedule a chat for the same day and time every week, which could be useful for instance for meeting and reviewing key ideas and questions related to the week’s content/assessment.

When you are finished with the settings screen, click on ‘Save and return to course‘ to add the chat activity to your course.
You will then see the chat activity appear in the course home page in the topic that you selected.