Here you can read about how discussions are structured, including topics and how to participate in a discussion.
Teachers can create a discussion forum within the course. Here, as a student, you have the opportunity to submit assignments, consult, ask questions and discuss with your fellow students.
- Navigate to Group Tools in the navbar of your course.
- Click on Discussions. You land on the Discussions homepage.
- On the Discussions homepage you see an overview of all discussion forums and topics that the teacher has created for the course. This is the Discussions List.
How Discussions are structured
Discussions are made up of three different parts:
- In a discussion forum you can discuss together with your fellow students.
- You do this within one or more themes (topics).
- You can create one or more threads within the topic.
The teacher can choose to create separate topics and / or threads for specific groups within the course. Here, the teacher can set whether you can also view the topics and / or threads of other groups or only those of your own group. Which parts are visible, therefore, depends on the teacher's settings.
Topics and Threads
A topic within a forum is the place where you can post and read messages. Within this topic you can create a thread: a main message to which others can respond with a post. You create a thread as follows:
- Click on a topic on the Discussions homepage. You see the description of the topic and all threads that have already been posted.
- Click Start a New Thread.
- Enter a subject.
- Add the text, for example a question you want to ask or the reason why you are creating the thread.
- When you create a thread, you automatically receive notifications (e-mail notifications) when someone responds to your thread. If you do not want this, uncheck subscribe from this thread.
- Click on Add attachments to add a file. Then click Upload and search for the correct file.
- Click on Post.
Reacting to a post
Within a topic you have the option to respond to threads from other participants (for example you can give feedback on an assignment that a student has posted or answer a question that another student or teacher has asked).
- Click on the desired topic on the Discussions homepage.
When a large number of threads are displayed, one can start a new one using the button at the top as well as on the bottom of the screen.
Click on the title of the thread that you want to respond to.
Click on Reply to Thread.
- Post your comment on the thread in the HTML editor.
- If necessary, click on Add original post text to add the post to which you respond.
- If you respond to a thread, you automatically receive notifications (e-mail notifications) when someone responds to the thread. If you do not want this, uncheck Subscribe to this thread.
- Add an attachment if necessary by clicking on Add Attachments. Then click Upload.
- Click on Post.
Whether you can respond to a thread depends on the teacher's settings. The teacher can set that you must first start a thread yourself, before you can respond to someone else's thread. In this situation you will see the item Must post first and you will not see any posts. Only when you start a thread yourself, do you see the posts of the other participants.
How do I find responses?
If someone responds to your Thread, you can see this at several places.
- Underneath your thread you can see how many unread reactions you have. The number above indicates how many there are. Click on Unread in order to read the responses.
You can also choose to set notifications for Discussions. Which notifications can I turn on/off and how do I connect the notifications to my Email adress?