Mattermost

Create a real-time team chat for your course to engage students in discussion and encourage community building.

Mattermost is a widespread asynchronous chat application for group collaboration, allowing students and instructors alike to create public channels, private group discussions, and one-on-one direct messages to facilitate communication. Users can be part of multiple discussions (channels), where they can share files and links as well as search and filter through past messages.

The application can be accessed through the web or the mobile app through any device, so message notifications can be customized to suit the user’s preferences: email alerts, mobile push notifications or desktop alerts, for example.

Disclaimers

Mattermost is not integrated with current course management systems at UBC, meaning that users will have to access the application separately.

Please note that there is a cost for using Mattermost. The cost is charged per teaching team member per year (instructor, teaching assistant (TA), support staff, or other UBC employees). For a UBC licensed alternative, see Microsoft Teams.

Mattermost offers features and functions to support instant communication necessary to foster community among students and for teaching and learning in a course.

• Mattermost provides a real-time and asynchronous, chatroom-like discussion space (similar to Slack) that is intuitive and easy to use.
• FIPPA compliant. The application is hosted at UBC, and uploaded files are stored on Amazon S3 in Canada meaning there are fewer security concerns with using the tool on a day-to-day basis.
• It is mobile-friendly, with apps available for both iPhone and Android as well as the option of using a desktop web version.
• Control is available over message notifications such as on-screen alerts on a desktop computer or laptop, e-mail alerts sent to your inbox, or push notifications on your phone.
• Different discussion groups of varying sizes can be created for different purposes, and users can be a member of multiple different groups and channels at once.
• The setup of multiple discussion groups works particularly well for subjects that require frequent communication and collaboration amongst group members.

If you would like further support on Mattermost, please connect with us to learn more about the tool and its capabilities.