What is a "Group"?

Teachers and students can now engage in real-time conversations outside of class using the newly added "Group Chat Feature" without leaving the platform. This resolves the issue of delayed communication between cross-border teachers and students who lack a common social tool (IM group) and previously required teaching assistant coordination, which often caused information interaction delays.

Display of IM Groups for Teachers and Students:

Group Display and Hiding:

• Display: Bottom left corner on Web; bottom menu in the App.
• Hide: Click on a blank area outside the group on Web; switch menus in the App.

Group Creation:

• The enterprise decides whether to enable IM groups for corresponding courses based on its course operations.
• Scheduled Classes: When creating a course (One-on-One, Small Class, Large Class), as shown in the image above.
• Booking-Based Classes: When binding a course package (One-on-One), as shown above.
• On-Demand Courses: Currently not supported.
  
• If a group was not created when the course was set up, it can be manually enabled under the "Course Details / Group Chat" tab. (Only teachers for future class sessions will be added; teachers for expired sessions will not join.)

Admin-Side Course Group Operations:

- For a target course with groups enabled, the "Group Chat" tab in course details appears as shown:
- View Chat History: Group files are retained for a maximum of 30 days; preview is unavailable beyond that. Messages recalled by teachers/students are marked at the corresponding message location.
- Set Administrators: Teachers from past class sessions under the course can be manually removed.
- Dissolve Chat: Upon dissolution, all existing chat history will be deleted, and the group will be synchronously removed from both teacher and student interfaces.

Group Member Composition:

• Teachers: Join with class sessions. (Multiple teachers can exist within a group if a course has several teachers.)
• Students: Membership changes with edits to the student list in course settings. Students added mid-course can view historical chat messages. Students added for individual class sessions (e.g., temporary transfers) do not join the group.

Chat History Storage (Teacher/Student Side):

• Local storage: Unlimited.
• Cloud storage: 30 days (cannot be retrieved after expiration).

Group Freezing:

• Groups are automatically frozen 90 days after the end date of the final class session. (Historical messages remain viewable; new messages cannot be sent.)
• Frozen groups do not allow: editing the course, editing class sessions, or creating new class sessions.

Group Dissolution:

• Groups are automatically dissolved 1 month after the course is frozen (i.e., 4 months after the final class session ends).

Additional Notes on IM Groups:

I、Group names cannot be modified in group settings; they are synchronized with the course name by default.
II、Teachers can publish [Group Announcements] in group settings.
III、Teachers can enable [Mute All] or [Mute Specific Students] in group settings.
IV、[Read Receipts] are only available for messages sent by teachers; not supported for messages sent by students.
V、Group chats support [@mention someone / @mention everyone].
VI、Groups support [Pin Chat] and [Mute Notifications] functions.
VII、Teachers cannot add or remove students.
VIII、Groups do not support voluntarily leaving or deleting the chat.
IX、User avatars within the group cannot be clicked; adding friends or sending private messages is not supported.
X、If an AI course package is selected when creating a course, the corresponding group will not be created upon course completion (as there is no teacher).
XI‌、Groups support multi-point login (maximum 5 concurrent logins per account; the earliest session will be logged out if the limit is exceeded).