Body
Relevant to: faculty and staff
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Introduction
Discussions allow the students and instructor to exchange ideas, ask and respond to questions, share files or collaborate on assignments and homework. Communication is asynchronous.
Terminology
- Forum: The top level of a discussion. A forum serves as a sort of “folder” inside which are topics.
- Topic: The main area of a discussion, where users post and read messages.
- Thread: One user's post in a discussion topic.
- Reply: One user’s response to another user’s post. Replies are part of the original poster’s thread.
Options and Settings
A course can contain as many, or as few forums and topics as is appropriate for that course. The following options and settings are available at both the forum and topic levels:
- Open to all course members, or restricted to specified groups or sections
- Allow anonymous posts
- Require users to start a thread before they can read or reply to other threads
- Require a moderator’s approval before individual posts display to participants
- Hide/unhide from users
- Set a start and end date for discussion
- Include in the course calendar
- Set release conditions, such as completion of a specified assignment
At the topic level, some additional options and settings are available:
- A rating scheme for posts
- Connection to the grade book and other settings related to assessment of students' posts
- Association with selected learning objectives