Using the Discussion Board

Setting up Discussion Forums | Starting Threads | Participating in Discussions

The Discussion Board feature of the online learning system allows asynchronous discussion (participants may contribute whenever they want without the need for a common meeting time). Unlike email, online discussions are organized in threads--a response to a posted message is indented below that message, while new topics are not indented.



You must set up discussion forums in order for your students to participate in them.
For instructions on how to use the Group Discussion Board, see Working with Groups in Online Learning.

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Setting up Discussion Forums

Threaded discussions take place within a forum. We recommend creating a new forum for each new discussion topic. To create a forum:

1. Go to the discussion board by clicking its link in the navigation panel on the left or by clicking the Discussion Board link in the Control Panel.
   
2. Click the Add Forum button.
   
3. Next, give a title and description for your discussion. For example, you might give a title of "Week 1 Readings" and a description "Questions and observations about chapters 1 & 2." If you have a statement or question you want your students to respond directly to, you'll post this as a thread within the forum.
   
4. In the Forum Settings section, make sure "Allow author to modify message after posting" and " Allow New Threads" are checked. You may not choose to check the other options depending on your preference.
   
5. You can also set permissions for this forum if you want to restrict access or give administrative privileges to students (if you wanted them to "run" the discussion). In most cases, you can leave this section as is.
   
6. Scroll down and click the Submit button at the lower right of the page.
   

Forum Settings:

Allow Anonymous Posts: This option allows students to post messages without revealing their identity. It should be used only when you are looking for everyone in your course to post anonymously, such as a mid-term discussion on how your students feel the course is going. However, it is not the most efficient way to gather anonymous messages. This feature requires that the students check a button to make the post anonymous. If they forget, the message will be posted with their name attached. If you need to gather information, such as course feedback, it is a good idea to create a survey instead of allowing anonymous posts.

Allow Author to Edit Message after Posting: This option allows a student to post a message and then, if he or she discovers a typo, to go back and correct that error without removing the message entirely.

Allow Author to Remove Own Posted Messages: This option allows students to post a message and then remove it without any evidence of the initial posting. We STRONGLY recommend that this option not be used. If a student removes his or her message, it also removes any other messages in that thread. If posting messages is part of the requirements for the course, other students’ work will be affected. Please DO NOT use this option.

Allow File Attachments: This option allows students to attach a document or file to a message. This option should be turned off for all discussions when asking students for only a text response. It may be allowed when asking students to submit projects or papers for other students to review. If you ask students to submit papers or projects for your review, we suggest using the Assignments feature. You may also choose this option when you are asking students to post resources that may not be available on the Internet.

Allow New Threads: This option allows students to create new messages.

Please note that if you choose to disable this function, you will have to set up the initial thread to which your students will respond. Otherwise, no messages will be posted.

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Setting up Discussion Threads

The term thread is used rather than message when refering to posting in a dicussion board. Threads of discussion are postings within a forum. For ease of organization and navigation for yourself and your students, we recommend posting only a couple threads per forum. Having only one thread is ideal since your students can post as many responses as they wish. To create a discussion thread;

1. Go to the discussion board by clicking on the link in the navigation panel on the left.
2. Click on the name of the forum in which you want to start a new thread.
3. Click the Add New Thread button.
   
4. Type the subject and message text. The subject should give some indication of the content of the message, similar to composing an email. It's generally a good idea to use things like open-ended questions to help generate substantive responses. If you're concerned about spelling, you can type your message in Word, run a spell check, and then copy and paste your message text into the message field.
5. You may also choose to attach a document to a thread by clicking the browse button and locating the appropriate file.
6. You may have a preview of what your message will look like after it’s posted by clicking the Preview button.
7. When you're finished, click the Submit button at the lower right of the page.

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Participating in Discussions

Explanation | Accessing | Reading/Replying | Adding Attachments
Group Discussion Boards

Explanation

Your online course provides a discussion board as a communication tool. This feature is designed for asynchronous use, meaning users do not have to be available at the same time to have a conversation. An additional advantage of the discussion board is that conversations are logged and organized by forums that contain threads and all related replies.

Faculty participate in discussions just like students do: reading and responding to posted messages. Our experience has been that students are better discussion participants when the instructor limits his or her postings. Rather than responding to every student, we recommend using your postings to redirect students toward relevant topics, challenging them to think about or investigate the subject more deeply, or to back up their opinions with examples or evidence.

Accessing the Discussion Board

To access the discussion board, click Discussion Board to the left of the page. Some courses may have the Discussion Board inside the Communication link.

Reading & Replying to Messages

All threaded discussions take place in forums. To enter a forum, click the name of the one you want to enter.

You will see "threads" of discussion. To see all of the responses within a thread, you may need to click Expand All. To view a thread, click on the message subject. (Clicking on the name of the person will let you send an email, but only to that person--it won't be posted to the discussion board.)


You can easily advance through all the messages in a discussion board by clicking "Next Message." To reply to a message, click the "reply" button on the bottom right of the message being displayed.

A page will appear in which you can type your reply. The message you are replying to is displayed at the bottom. Type your reply and click the Submit button at the lower right of the page.

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Adding Attachments

As the instructor, you can choose to allow students to add attachments to the messages you post to the discussion board. You will always be able to add attachments to your messages, even if students cannot. To add an attachment, follow these steps:

1. Enter the discussion board and choose the forum to which you want to post a message.
2. Click the Add New Thread button.
3. Type the subject and message in the text boxes provided.
4. Click the Browse button to locate the file you want to attach.
5. Click the Submit button to the lower right of the page.

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