Online Discussions > Creating and Participating in Forums

To create a Discussion Forum login to your site and click "Contol Panel>Discussion Boards>Add Forum". Provide a name and description for this forum .

The next step is to assign forum settings. Check off the appropriate boxes for the different settings that you'd like to apply to this forum:

These settings are fairly straightforward. At the bottom of the page you have the ability to assign different access levels on a user by user basis, or to block participants entirely from participating.

If you assign administrative access to a user they will be able to assist in the management of this specific forum. This will give them the ability to create archives, lock threads, and remove messages. By default the only people with administrative access to a forum will be those with instructor access.

Once you have adjusted the settings for this forum accordingly click the button labeled "Submit". You will receive a confirmation that the forum has been created. After the forum has been created users can login to the site, browse to the forum, and begin adding messages by using the "Add Thread" button.

This button adds top level threads, while clicking on the reply button while reading a thread allows users to respond to each other.

When users reply to each other you will see the replies to main threads indented. This will help you keep track of who is responding to who; this is the fundamental principle of a threaded discussion.

If you ever wish to change forum settings log back in to your course site and click "Contol Panel>Discussion Boards>Add Forum" and then click the button labeled "Modify" next to the forum in question.

return to top

Related FAQ's

Q: How can I encourage student participation?

1 - Allow participation in threaded discussions to be used as a portion of a student's participation grade (in-class participation and on-line participation being weighted somewhat equally).

2 - Post an interactive assignment in a discussion forum and provide guidelines as to what you would like to see in the postings; encourage students to read/respond to each other's posts.

3 - Early in the semester participate actively by picking out a few good posts and respond to them yourself to let students know that you are actively reading messages in these forums.

return to top