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Creating discussion forums and topics

Use forums to organize your discussion topics into categories. Your course can have multiple forums and topics, but you must create a forum before you can create a topic since all topics belong to forums.

Create a new forum

  1. On the Discussions List page, click New Forum from the New button.
  2. Enter a Title and Description for your forum.
  3. Select the Create a new topic in this forum with the same title check box to automatically create a topic in the forum with the same name.
  4. In the Options section:
    • Select the Allow anonymous posts check box to enable anonymous posting to topics in the forum.

    • Note You cannot evaluate anonymous posts.

    • Select the A moderator must approve individual posts before they display in the forum check box to require moderators approve posts before they appear in forum topics.
    • Select the Users must start a thread before they can read and reply to other threads in each topic check box if you want users to start a thread before they can read and respond to other threads in each topic.
  5. Select a Visibility option for your forum.

    Note If you select Forum is visible for a specific date range, select the Has Start Date and Has End Date check boxes to set your availability. You can also have dates Display in Calendar.

  6. Select forum Locking Options:
    • Select Lock forum to the lock the forum upon creation. It remains locked until you select Unlock forum.
    • Select Unlock forum for a specific date range to open the forum within a date range. Select the Has Start Date and Has End Date check boxes to set your forum availability.
  7. See Setting release conditions for a discussion forum or topic if you want to set release conditions for your forum.
  8. Click Save and Close or Save and Add Topic.

Create a new topic

  1. On the Discussions List page, click New Topic from the New button.
  2. Select the Forum you want to place your topic in from the drop-down list. Click New Forum if you want to create a new forum for your topic.
  3. Enter a Title and Description for your topic.
  4. In the Options section:
    • Select the Allow anonymous posts check box to enable anonymous posting to the topic.

    • Note You cannot evaluate anonymous posts.

    • Select the A moderator must approve individual posts before they display in the forum check box to require moderators approve posts before they appear in the topic.
    • Select the Users must start a thread before they can read and reply to other threads check box if you want users to start a thread before they can read and respond to other threads in the topic.
  5. Select a rating scheme from the Rating Scheme drop-down list:
    • No Ratings Hides all rating controls from users.
    • Five-Star Rating Scheme Allows users to assign each post a score out of five.
    • Up Vote/Down Vote Rating Scheme Allows users to push posts up or down in rank.
    • Up Vote Only Rating Scheme Allows users to push posts upwards in rank.

      Notes

      You can change the rating scheme at any time. Reverting back to a previous used scheme will restore its former ratings.

      Users need the permissions Rate Posts and See Average Post Ratings to enable post rating. Contact your administrator for more information.

  6. Select a Visibility option for your topic.

    Note If you select Topic is visible for a specific date range, select the Has Start Date and Has End Date check boxes to set your availability. You can also have dates Display in Calendar.

  7. Select topic Locking Options:
    • Select Lock topic to the lock the forum when it is created. It remains locked until you select Unlock topic.
    • Select Unlock topic for a specific date range to open the topic within a date range. Select the Has Start Date and Has End Date check boxes to set your topic availability.
  8. See Discussion forum and topic restrictions, Topic assessment, and Topic objectives for more information on how to set release conditions, evaluate discussion posts, and associate learning objectives for a topic.
  9. Click Save and Close or Save and New.

See also

Audience: