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Brightspace: Discussion Boards

The discussion board tool creates a place for an interactive threaded discussion to take asynchronously in the course. Discussions consist of forums, topics, and threads. Forums and topics must be created by the instructor. Within a forum or topic, students may add or reply to discussion threads.

Organizing Discussion Forums

One course-level forum with multiple different topics: if you have one discussion board post each week/each unit, this would be the right option for you as you can create topics for each unit/weekly assigned discussion.
Multiple forums with different topics: the main use case for this is to create one discussion forum for any whole class semester-long discussions and then create individual forums for group-based discussions.

Discussion Board Structure

Forums: top-level structure by units, weeks, theme, etc. Forums are not gradable. It must be made first by the instructor.
Topics: second level in the discussion board setup which are the specific prompts or questions.
Threads: bottom level of the discussion board setup and is the responses to the prompts from Topics.

Getting Started: Creating Discussion Forum and Topic

When you first start course development, you'll need to build a forum. Once you have a forum, you can add topics to it.

Creating the Forum

In the Course Navigation, click on Other Course Tools and then go to Discussions
Click New and choose New Forum
Give your Forum a Title
Click Save and Close

Creating Topics

Find the forum created above, click the carrot icon to the right of it, and choose Add Topic. This will put our new topic in the forum we created.
Enter the title of the first topic (i.e. week 1)
On your New Topic creation page you should see an option for Grade Out of. By default, that option is Ungraded.
- If you want to leave your discussion ungraded without a point value attached, leave this as is.
- If you want your discussion to be graded, click on the option that says Grade Out of and it will allow you to enter points.
- If you want your discussion to have a point value attached, but not be graded, click Not in Grade Book and you'll be able to enter points.
Below that is the description box. Enter your instructions and/or prompt for the topic.
Next, review the Settings & Options for Discussion Topics

Settings & Options For Discussion Topics

Now that we've set up the basics of our discussion, let's go through the settings options.

Availability Dates & Conditions

Set a Start Date (the date students click into the discussion/ access the prompt.) and/or End Date (the date students can't access anymore. the date students click into the discussion/ access the prompt. Add the level of visibility of the assignment by clicking on Before Start: Visible with access restricted. Choose from:

Visible with access restricted: Students can see the assignment, but not open it
Visible with submission restricted: Students can see and open the assignment, but not submit to it
Hidden: Students can't see the assignment at all
After choosing an option, choose to Add availability dates to Calendar

Release Conditions: set certain criteria students must achieve before they can access the discussion.
Group and Section Restrictions: restrict topics to specific groups. If you need to set up group discusisons in a class, use this setting and choose to either:

Restrict topic: Users in the selected groups/sections can view this topic and all of its threads. This option will allow you to create a topic for a specific group where they can create their own threads i.e. if you want a group to have a place to discuss and exchange ideas. You would have to create separate topics for each group and restrict them with this setting.
Restrict topic and separate the threads: Users in the selected groups/sections can view this topic but will only see threads from their group/section. This option allows you to create separate group discussions for each group as the selected groups can see the topic, but can only see threads posted from their fellow group members. If you want to set up a journal-type place for students to post. Create a group with the Single user, member-specific groups option and then choose this setting.

Post & Completion

Default Participation: no restrictions on participation
Allow learners to hide their names from other learners
Learners must start a thread before they can view or reply to other threads
Lastly, if you want to moderate discussion posts before they are shared publicly, you can check the posts must be approved before they display in the topic option. Generally, we recommend leaving this off as it creates more work for instructors

Evaluation & Feedback

Rubrics: use an existing rubric already created/create a new one.
Learning Objectives: likely won't use these, but can tie discussions to them
Evaluate Posts: allowing evaluation of individual posts allows for the grading of individual posts in a topic. Generally, we recommend leaving this off. The second option, Allow learners to rate posts, will give students the ability to rate each other's discussion posts.

Once you're done with your settings, click Save and Close. You should now see the new topic under the forum you created.

Linking a Discussion to a Module

After creating a discussion forum and topic, you'll likely want to link it in a module to make it easier for students to access.

Go to Content in the red course navigation
Find the module where you want the link to live. If you don't have any modules yet, you'll need to create one first.
Click on the option for Existing Activities and then choose Discussions.
From there, click the forum you want to use and the topic.
Your link will be created in the module

Grade Discussions for Quality

If you want to see the specific threads and replies students have made for a discussion, all in one place, then follow these directions:

Start in the Discussions page under Other Course Tools.
Click on the carrot and select Assess Topic, which will bring you to the Users involved in the discussion.
From here you can click on Topic Score to see all of the work from an individual student and grade them (if you included an assessment).
Back on the Users page, you can provide feedback in bulk by checking the box next to their Topic Score and selecting Add Feedback. You can also give comments to all students with the Add Feedback to All button. NOTE: Feedback in bulk are drafts; you will need to select Publish All Feedback.

buttons for "Publish All Feedback," "Retract All Feedback," and "Add Feedback to All." Purple and green instructional text boxes highlight these features.

Grading Discussions for Participation

It can be hard to manage engaging in discussions while also keeping track of discussions. The steps below willl walk you through a workflow that helps you to stay on top of class discussion and grading.

During the week of the discussion, reply and engage with students posts (as needed) for a given discussion just by going to the link to the discussion in Content or via Other Course Tools
After the week is over, go to Other Course Tools and click on Discussions. Then, choose Statistics across the top
From there, click on Forums and Topics and select the discussion topic for that week
Scroll down and you can see the number of threads students created, the number of replies to other posts, and the number of posts they read in the topic for that week
Then, open a new window and go to Enter Grades under Students & Grades in the red course navigation
Find the column for that discussion, click the carrot to the right of it, and click Enter Grades
You can then either go through individually and enter grades for each student, or bulk set grades by checking the box in the upper left and then clicking Set Grades
Click Save and Close

When using educational technology tools, be FERPA aware. To learn more, visit the Registrar's FERPA Guidelines site.

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