Discussion Tool

If you’d like to create a forum, make sure that “Edit mode,” located in the top right-hand corner of your screen, is on. Once Edit Mode is on, 

Creating a Discussion Forum

• 1. Click “Create Forum” on the action bar to create a new forum.

  2. On the Create Forum page, type a forum title in the “Name” box. 

     • This title will be the link for users to access the forum.

  3. Type your prompt on Forum Information Description in the content editor. 

     • You can use the content editor functions to format the text and include file attachments, images, web links, multimedia, and mashups. 

  4.  Determine Forum Availability 

     • Select ”Yes” to select the forum available to users immediately. 

     • Select ”No” to hide the forum on the Discussion Board from users.. 

       • You have to manually come into the discussion and make it available later. 

  5. If desired, Enter Date and Time Restrictions that lets you display the discussion to students

     • Select the ”Display After” and ”Display Until” check boxes for a specific date and time and to stop displaying on a specific date and time. 

     • You can use the pop-up Date Selection Calendar and Time Selection Menu to select dates and times or type dates and times in the boxes. 

     • If you selected "No," above these date and time restrictions will not go into effect. 

  6. Forum Settings  are the criteria for the Discussion Forum based on your preferences. In this section, you can select how students can view threads and reply to other posts posted by their classmates. 

     • The default setting is Standard View and this allows students to immediately participate in the discussions.

     • The “participants must create a thread in order view other threads in this forum” or "post first," where students must respond to the discussion prompt first before viewing other student responses. If select this option, some features like the students' ability to edit and delete posts will become unavailable.

Grade Settings

• • 1. If theGrade Settings if you want to create social forums with no grading options or the thread requires no grading, select No Grading in Forum.

    2. Select the radial button“Grade Discussion Forum” to turn on grading. 

    3. Provide the “Points possible” by entering the number of points you’d like the discussion forum to be worth. You will not be able to save the discussion without points entered if you made the discussion gradeable. 

    4. When you choose “Grade Discussion Forum” a column is created automatically in the Grade Center with the Name of the discussion. 

 Needs Grading

• • 1. Select numbers of posts you’d like students to make before they show up in “needs grading” status under the Grade Center section of the control panel. Enter the desired number.

    2. Select the due date you would like the discussion forum posts to be. Similarly, select the time you would like them to be due as well.

    3. Select the rubric you’d like to use. You can select a rubric you’ve already created or create a new rubric all together.

Rubrics

• • 1. When the Grade Forum option is selected, you can associate rubrics with a forum. Click “Add Rubric”

    2. Select the rubric you’d like to use. You can select a rubric you’ve already created or create a new rubric all together.

    3. By default, “used for grading” is selected when you add a rubric, however, you can also use the drop-down menu if you choose to use the rubric for “Secondary Evaluation.”

    4. If you add a rubric, you can choose to show your students the rubric with or without rubric scores before grading OR after grading.

    5. You can also choose to refrain from showing your rubric to your students all together by simply selecting “No.” All these options appear when the “Show Rubric to Students” drop-down menu is clicked.  

Grade Forum or Grade Threads

• • 1. you can choose numbers of posts that will place the activity in ‘needs grading’ status. You might want to grade students only when they have made a certain number of posts, rather than grading each time they make a single post. 

    2. Selecting Grade Threads, some features including allowing for anonymous posts, as indicated by the number one on the screen, or allowing members to create new threads indicated by the number 2 will be unavailable as options. 

    3. After setting grading criteria, additional settings can be applied to the discussion forum. 

Subscription

• • 1. Subscribe section of the forum settings page, you can enable email subscription, thereby, allowing students to receive email alerts for new posts or replies.

    2. When you enable email subscription, students can receive email alerts for new posts or replies. You can allow students to subscribe to an entire forum or to specific threads within a forum. To allow members to subscribe to threads, select that option.

    3. If you click “Allow member subscribe to forum” users can subscribe to all threads within the forum, while subscribing to threads, only allows the ability to choose individual threads within each discussion. 

    4. If you select “Include body of post in the email,” the email will display the message text and a link to reply to the message in the email notification. If you select “Include link to post,” a link to the message will be displayed in the email notification.  Either can be selected for thread or forum subscriptions.

    5. If you allow for the subscription of forums or threads, you may wish to notify your students of this option. 

    6. If you do not want your students to subscribe to forums or threads, select “Do not allow subscriptions.”

Create and Edit

• • 1. The post anonymously features allows students to post without being identified or receiving a grade. This tool  

    2. To give students a bit more control over the discussion board, check “Allow author to delete Own Posts.” Then, choose to allow authors to delete their own posts, decide whether you want them to delete all posts or only posts that have not been replied to.

    3. Another way to give students more freedom with their posts is to allow them to edit their own published posts.

    4. Occasionally, students may introduce material to the discussion board inappropriate for the class discussion. Depending on the maturity and the sensitivity of the students in your course, you may need to review student posts before sharing them with the rest of the class.

    5. In a discussion forum, you can assign a user the role of moderator. A moderator reviews posts before they are added to a thread and appear in the discussion board. You or another responsible participant can fulfill the role of moderator.

    6. When you create a moderated forum, all posts to the forum are added to a moderation queue. A moderator reviews each post and does one of following

       •  Publishes the post.

       • Returns the post to the sender without a message.

       • Returns the post to the sender with a message.

    7. You choose to moderate a forum when creating it or by editing an existing forum. You can only review posts added after enabling the forum moderation. If you do not assign a moderator, the manager role must take responsibility for approving posts in a moderated forum.

    8. When choosing a moderated forum, do not allow students to edit or delete posts. You want to be sure that users view the posts approved.

Additional Options

• • 1. An additional option that can be enabled is allowing members to tag posts. Tags are text labels that act like bookmarks. You can tag posts to group similar messages together. Students can read, filter, and search messages using these tags, but they cannot create tags.

    2. Another option that can be enabled is allowing members to rate posts. Rating posts allows users to focus on messages that are considered especially informative or useful by others. Depending on the forum settings, students and instructors can assign ratings to posts using a five-star system.