Guide
A study group chat room, made from one link
Study groups are the clearest case for a room that is not a permanent social group: the membership is a batch or a subject, people join and leave as terms change, and nobody wants their number circulating around a coaching class.
Setting one up for a batch
Name the room after the subject and the term rather than the group — 'Class 12 Physics, Oct' — and share the link wherever the batch already talks, or put it on the board as a QR code. Anybody arriving late opens the same link.
Keep it private if the batch is fixed and you would rather it were not joinable by whoever finds the link. Keep it public if you want people to be able to forward it.
Sharing work in it
Photos of a worked solution or a page of notes go in directly. Replies quote the message they answer, so a thread of doubts does not turn into a wall where nobody can tell which question is being answered.
Mentions notify the person named rather than everybody, which matters in a room of forty where most messages are not for most people.
Keeping it usable when it gets busy
Anyone can mute a room and still see their unread count, so a study group can be busy without being an interruption during class. Admins can pin a message — the syllabus, the exam date, the link to the shared drive — so it is not lost above four hundred messages.
If somebody is being disruptive, an admin can time them out for a while rather than removing them permanently, which is usually the proportionate answer in a group people have to keep seeing.
If you want the notes findable later
A room can publish its conversation to the public directory, which makes it readable on the web and browsable under a topic. It is off unless an admin turns it on, it publishes only messages from the moment it is switched on, and it can be withdrawn.
For most study groups you will not want that. It exists for the ones that do — an open revision room where people are happy for the answers to be readable.
Questions people ask
Can the room stay private to my batch?
Yes. A private room is invitation-only and is not readable or discoverable by anyone outside it.
Can I share photos of notes?
Yes. Photos and files can be shared in any room.
Will it notify me for every message?
Only if you want. A room can be muted and will still accrue an unread count, and mentions notify the person named rather than everybody.
Or look at what is already being talked about: public chat rooms, study chat rooms, tech chat rooms.