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Community standards remind your students that the principles of mutual respect they follow in the classroom also apply to all forms of asynchronous online discussion: from graded discussions to open forums.
There are different approaches to creating guidelines. You may follow a set of guidelines established by your institution, create your own, or you may choose to open the process to your students in a collaborative exercise.
Openness to new ideas
Respect for diverse viewpoints
Praise and encouragement
Appropriate language and tone
Confidentiality of posts
In any case, make sure that all students have acknowledged the guidelines, provide a rationale for the guidelines, and be prepared to intervene if something goes wrong (it probably won’t).
For information on how to address violations of community standards see Management.
Core Standards
Much of your interaction in this course will take place in discussion forums. Each discussion activity has its own rules and purpose, but there are some standards that you can apply to any discussion:
Be open to new ideas: What you think you know about a topic might not be correct or might not be the only valid perspective.
Be constructive: Help your classmates with feedback that they can act on.
Consider your audience: You are writing for your classmates, instructor, and TA.
Write clearly: Discussion forums are often informal, but your posts should be concise, properly capitalized and punctuated, and free of grammatical errors. (Tip: Read what you’ve written aloud before you post it.)
Writing a Discussion Post - Grading - Community Standards
Teaching Students How to Post - Technical and Logistical Parameters