• What is the Discussion Board?
• How do I initiate a discussion?
• What do the different forum roles mean?
• What are forum subscriptions?
• What is post tagging?
• What is post rating?
• What does "force moderation" mean?
• Can I grade student contributions to the Discussion Board?

What is the Discussion Board?

The Discussion Board is a tool for written, threaded discussions, grouped in a number of forums. It is available to the class as a whole as well as to groups. Participants are able to create discussion threads (if enabled), respond to threads or posts, and send file attachments along with posts. The Discussion Board is an asynchronous communication tool, so participants do not have to be online at the same time.

How do I initiate a discussion?

The first step towards initiating a discussion is to create a Discussion Board forum:

• In the Control Panel, under "Course Tools," click on "Discussion Board."
• Click either the name of the course for a class discussion forum or the name of a group for a group discussion forum. (Note: Groups will appear only after you have created groups as described in Managing Users: How do I create student groups?)
• Click on the "Add Forum" button.
• Enter a name and description and modify the forum options as desired.
• Click "Submit."

After a forum is created, a forum manager (instructor or TA) needs to add a thread before students can participate in the discussion. (If the "Allow members to create new threads" option is enabled for the forum, a participant can be assigned to do this as well.)

• To add a thread, click on the newly created forum.
• Click the "Add Thread" button.
• Enter a subject and a message in the respective text fields and click "Submit." Participants can now reply to the thread.

What do the different forum roles mean?

In the Manage Forum Users page, the instructor can assign different roles to forum participants. The Manage Users page is accessed by clicking the Manage button to the left of a forum name in the main forum list.

• Participant: Default role for students. Participants can read and post, but have no other privileges.
• Moderator: Default role for Course Builder. Moderators can review/reject posts, and delete and modify posts.
• Reader: Readers may view forum threads and replies, but cannot add any content.
• Manager: Default role for instructors and TAs. The Manager role allows complete control over the forum and threads, forum settings, post moderation and grading.
• Grader: Graders may review posts and enter grades but cannot modify postings or settings.
• Blocked: Blocked users are prevented from accessing the forum.

What are forum subscriptions?

Subscriptions allow students to receive an email notification whenever a discussion thread is updated. Note that students are not automatically subscribed when the "Allow members to subscribe" box is checked. Instead, they need to click the Subscribe button next to a forum or thread to activate their subscription.

The email notification may or may not contain the actual contents of the post, according to the forum or thread settings.

What is post tagging?

Tags are brief text labels that allow for message grouping across threads. Forum managers can create and apply text labels of their choosing to messages in a forum. Discussion participants can read, filter, and search messages using the tags, but cannot create new ones. This can be helpful to overcome the rigid structure of the threads and to overlay a semantic organization on the default thread pattern.

What is post rating?

When "Allow members to rate posts" is checked, discussion participants have the ability to rate other participants' posts using a 5-star rating system. The ratings are included in the post's Overall Rating that appears next to each post.

What does "force moderation" mean?

When the "force moderation" option is checked, all posts have to be reviewed and approved by a forum manager before they are posted to the forum. Instructors and TAs automatically have forum manager status. Instructors or TAs can also designate additional forum managers on the Manage Forum Users page.

Can I grade student contributions to the Discussion Board?

Instructors have the option to enable grading for Discussion Board forums and threads. Enabling this option automatically creates a corresponding column in the Gradebook. Grades can be entered either in the Gradebook or by clicking the Grade icon next to the forum or thread in the main forum or thread list.

When adding a thread to a forum that has "Grade threads" enabled, you have the option to enable grading and assign a point value for the new thread.

Note that "Allow members to create new threads" cannot be enabled in a forum in which "Grade threads" is enabled.