D-ITET Chat servers

The Element Web frontend to the D-ITET Matrix chat service is available here:

• element.ee.ethz.ch

• The Matrix service itself, a.k.a. as the Matrix home server is located at matrix.ee.ethz.ch

The server is in a so-called federation with other ETH chat servers which enables users with accounts on individual servers to chat with users on other servers.

Notice on service availability

This is a paid service available to D-ITET institutes by yearly subscription from request.
The ETH ID Matrix service is an ETH-wide alternative

Purpose

The ITET chat servers provide a service for real-time exchange of text-based information (instant messaging).

The nature of this information is:

• Short-lived and of immediate relevance
• Specific to a topic, reflected in an appropriate area i.e. a chat room
• Low in data volume

For information exchange of a different kind please use more suitable services like email, mailing lists, personal websites or polybox.

Features

• Chat functionality (chatrooms and private chats)
• Telephone- and videoconferencing in direct chat rooms (PERSONEN/PEOPLE) with 2 members

• A special chat administrator (chatroom manager) account is provided for an organizational unit on request. Such an account makes sense if you don't want to bind the chatroom ownership (manager role) to a specific employee (that might leave ETH one day for instance), but rather to an impersonal admin account that belongs to the laboratory.

Accessing the chat platform

• Use your ETH credentials for login

Browser-based access

• On any client, the Matrix Element instant messaging web GUI may be accessed by pointing a webbrowser to the chat server's address on top of this page
• Firefox or Chrome are recommended, Microsoft Edge is discouraged

Desktop clients (Chat software)

• On ISG.EE managed Windows clients, installation of the Element desktop client package (standalone client) can be requested individually at ISG

• On ISG.EE managed Linux clients, the element-desktop application can initially be started from the command line, afterwards it's Icon will be available for launch in a desktop environment

Other clients

• In general, Matrix Element clients for almost any common platform, including mobile devices (Android, IOS), may be obtained from application stores like Google Play, Apple App Store or from the Matrix website https://matrix.org/docs/projects/clients-matrix

Data protection and extensibility

• Chat data (history) is stored on D-ITET servers and will not leave D-ITET in general
• It is however possible to access the chats remotely (e.g. from mobile devices). Connections are encrypted.

• A cooperation/ chat integration ("Federation") with other, ETH-external organizations/ other chat platforms (e.g. Slack) might be possible, must however be requested by the customer.

• NOTE: If the user's e-mail address is entered in the chatsoftware user-profile, the e-mail address will be submitted to an ETH-external manufacturer identity server. This would allow that the user is found globally by other organizations. Don't fill in your e-mail address, if you refuse automatic submission of that address to the external server. Currently automatic submission of the e-mail address cannot be disabled, but the e-mail address is not mandatory for most chat application usages.

Chat rooms

• Chatrooms in general are personal and can be created by every user

• The ITET-All chatroom to which every user is automatically joined at the first login, is reserved for future purposes (e.g. department-wide announcements) and cannot be used by normal users to post messages. The reason for automatically joining each user to this chatroom is to reach the user over this channel in the future (so it won't be necessary to invite users later separately to that room).

Usage policy and code of conduct

Summarized, the following rules apply for use of this service:

• No illegal activities
• No abuse
• No spam
• Be polite

Detailled information about ETH wide rules applying to this service can be found here:

• Acceptable Use Policy for Telematics Resources (Benutzungsordnung für Telematik an der ETH Zürich, BOT)

• ETH Code of conduct

Behave like being physically in a room with other people

Communicate in English, it is the common spoken and written language used in the multi-cultural environment at ETH.

Introduce yourself when entering a room. This is considered polite. It signals you want to participate in the conversation of the room as opposed to staying in the background observing others.

Show yourself

Use your first and given name as display name. This service is not anonymous, a chat members username is visible to everybody. Other chat members can identify you easier by your full name.

Stick to the topic

Join a room matching the topic of your information or question. If the topic of a conversation changes, relocate to an appropriate room or create one if it doesn't exist. If the conversation evolves into a dialog, open a chat only with your partner.

Do not waste resources

Do not send high volume content like movies or large images. Instead, place your content on a suitable service and provide a link to it. This saves space on our server and makes it easier for everybody to focus on the relevant content on this service.

Use according to purpose

Use this service for what is outlined under its purpose only. While it can do more, those features are not supported or maintained at the moment.

Best practice

Read recommendations on how to use this service on the Best Practice page.