Discussion Forums

For more information about Discussion Forums, you can look through the information bellow or read Moodle's Support documentation

Creating a Discussion

Creating an online discussion is a great way to continue learning outside the classroom. To create an online discussion, we can use the Forum activity.

  1. Click the Gear icon (upper right) and choose Turn Editing On
  2. Click Add an Activity or Resource.
  3. Choose Forum and click Add.
  4. Give the discussion a name, pose a question, and under Ratings, set the point value.
  5. Then click Save and Display.

Email Notifications (Subscription)

If you are subscribed to a forum, you will be notified by email of every subsequent post to that forum. These emails allow you to stay informed when new posts are added. Depending on the number of responses to the forum, this could quickly fill up your mailbox. Fortunately, people can usually decide whether or not to be subscribed to a forum, unless the instructor chooses to force the subscription (see item below for how to unsubscribe from a forum).

Unsubscribe

Faculty can choose if the subscription to a Discussion Forum is Forced, Optional, Auto-subscribed, or disabled. Forced subscriptions prevent users from unsubscribing.

To change the Subscription Setting:

  1. Navigate to the Forum and click the Gear icon.
  2. Change the Subscription Setting to Optional, Auto, or disabled.

To unsubscribe from a forum:

  1. Navigate to the Forum and click the Gear icon.
  2. Click unsubscribe. (If you cannot, the instructor may need to change the subscription setting.)

Grading Forum Posts

In Moodle you can set up a Forum to be graded. This is done slightly differently than other grade items.

  1. When creating your Forum or after you have created your form got to the Ratings sectionrate.png
  2. Change the Aggregate Type from No ratings to the rating type you would prefer. The most common recommended type is Sum of ratings. This type can be chosen for forums where you would give an initial set of point to one post and then another set to student replies.aggregate type.png
  3. Keep the Type as Points
  4. In the Maximum grade add the maximum number of points a student can get. If a student can get 10 points for their original post and are required to post two replies worth 5 points each, you would put 20 in the maximum grade section.maximum grade.png
  5. If you want only forum posted in a time to be able to be rated (graded) select the Restrict ratings to items with dates in this range: and select the time frame for the posts. Note: this will not prevent students from posting outside of the time.restrict rating.png
  6. Once done setting the ratings section. Go to the Grade section to put in a grade category if they are set up in the gradebook.grade.png
  7. When done select Save And Return To Coursesave and return.png

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