Discussions

The Discussions tool is a collaboration area for you and your students. You can set up discussions to allow students to post, read and reply to messages on different topics, share thoughts about course materials, ask questions, share files, or work with their peers on assignments and homework. To access the discussions tool click the Connect menu on your course navbar and select Discussions.

Types of Discussions

• Discussion Forums and Topics with no restrictions are visible to all users in a course.

• Group Discussions are Forums with Topics restricted to groups within your course. Group Discussions can also be created when you create your groups; these topics will automatically be restricted to the corresponding groups. For more information on creating Group Discussions from the Groups area of the course please see the Groups documentation.

• Moderated Discussion Forums require all messages to be approved by the instructor/teaching assistant before they will be visible to other members of the course.

• Post First Discussions are Discussions that are not visible to students until after the student has posted to the discussion.

• Anonymous Discussions are Discussions that do not identify the poster of the message to other students or the instructor, and anonymous posts cannot be graded.

Creating a Discussion Forum

Before you create a discussion topic you must create at least one Discussion Forum. You can use forums to organize your discussion topics into categories.

Your course can include as many topics as you like, organized into forums. Topics are where discussions actually take place, where users post and read messages, but each topic must belong to a forum.

To create a forum:

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

   Open

   

   Figure: Navbar Connect/Discussions.

    

2. Click New then choose New Forum.
   
   

   Open

   

   Figure: The New Forum option of the new drop-down menu on the Discussions page

    

3. From the Properties tab of the New Forum page, customize the following:

• Provide a Title for your new discussion forum (1).

• Use Brightspace Editor to add a Description (2).

• Click to select additional forum options, including allowing anonymous posts, participation requirements, and displaying the forum description in topics (3).

• Allow anonymous posts: Enables users to post anonymously.

  • The author of an anonymous post is not visible to other students or the instructor, and anonymous posts cannot be graded.

• A moderator must approve individual posts before they display in the forum: Ensures that posts are approved by a moderator before they display in the forum.

• Users must start a thread before they can read and reply to other threads in each topic: Ensures user participation by making thread creation mandatory.

• Display forum descriptions in topics: Provides instructors the option to display a discussion forum description within a discussion topic description.

4. Click the Restrictions tab and do one or more of the following:
   Under Availability, define the date range when the discussion will be available to users. (1).
   Availability options specify when learners can access (or view) a forum based on a specific date set by you. For example, you can set a date to make a discussion forum available to learners after the end date for finishing a course module.

   • Locking Options specify if learners can post or reply to a forum based on a specific date set by you. For example, you can set a date to lock a discussion forum after making it available, giving learners time to read and understand the discussion forum, but not post replies. You can also set a date to unlock the forum several days later, allowing learners to post their well thought out replies.

     • Visible with access restricted before start/end. The forum is visible to learners before or after the start or end date, but they cannot access it.

     • Visible with submission restricted before start/end. The forum is visible to learners before or after the start or end date and they can access it, but they cannot post new threads or replies. This effectively makes a discussion read-only.

     • Hidden before start/end. The forum is hidden from learners until the start or end date. Calendar events for Availability Start and Availability End are hidden until the start or end date. Notifications are also not sent until the start or end date.

5. Add automated conditions for access using Release Conditions. (2)

6. Apply restrictions to groups or sections. (3)

7. Click Save and Close to create the forum; or Save and Add Topic to create a discussion topic within your new forum.

You have created a Discussion Forum using the Discussions tool

Create a discussion topic using the Discussions tool

 To create a discussion topic using the Discussions tool

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.
   
   

2. From the New drop-down menu, click New Topic.
   
   

3. On the New Topic page, do the following:

• Enter a Topic Title.

• Under Forum, select an existing forum where your topic will go, or click Create Forum to create a new forum for this topic.

• To add your topic to your grade book, enter a value in the Grade Out Of field.

  • By default this will create a new Grade Item in the Gradebook. If you have already set up a grade item for this discussion, click In Grade Book > Edit or Link to Existing to select the grade item from your Gradebook you wish to link this discussion to.

4. In the Availability Dates & Conditions menu, enter the following:

• Enter a Start Date and End Date.

• Adjust the Before end and After end restrictions based on your preferences by clicking each option.

5. Click Add Release Condition to create a new release condition or add an existing one.

6. Under Group and Section Restrictions, you can set different restrictions if you have Groups or Sections set up in your course.

7. In the Post & Completion menu, select the checkboxes for any of the following options to apply them to your discussion topic: 

• Default participation

• Allow learners to hide their name from other learners

  • This setting is actually enabling Anonymous Posts. This wording implies that just students won’t be able to see the name of the poster; however, the instructor will also not be able to see the name of the poster. Additionally, a student can not be assessed on a post if they post it anonymously.

• Learners must start a thread before they can view or reply to other threads

• Posts must be approved before they display in the topic
  
  

8. In the Evaluation & Feedback menu, do the following:

• Click Add Rubric to attach a rubric to your discussion topic.

• Click Manage Learning Objectives to associate learning objectives to your discussion topic.

• Select the Allow evaluation of individual posts checkbox if you want to assign scores to posts. Then, select your Calculation Method. You can also choose to Include unevaluated posts in the topic score calculation as zero.

• Select Allow learning to rate posts if you want your learners to score others' posts. Then, select a rating type.

9. Toggle the Visibility ON or OFF in the bottom left.

10. Click Save and Close.

Edit a discussion topic using the Discussions tool

To edit a discussion topic in Discussions

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Find your discussion topic and click the drop-down menu (arrow icon) beside the topic title and select Edit Topic.

    

3. On your discussion topic's page, edit the Title, Forum, Grade Out Of, and Description fields as desired.

4. In the Availability Dates & Conditions menu, edit the Start Date and End Date, Release Conditions, and Group and Section Restrictions.

5. In the Post & Completion menu, edit participation and display options for posts.
   
   

    

6. In the Evaluation & Feedback menu, attach a rubric, add learning objectives, and change evaluation settings for posts
   
   

7. Toggle the Visibility ON or OFF.

8. Click Save and Close in the bottom left.
   
   

Copying Forums and Topics

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Click the More Actions button and select Copy from the drop-down menu.

3. From the Copy Forums and Topics page, select either Copy a Forum or Copy a Topic.

4. If you select Copy a Forum.

   1. Select the Forum you would like to copy from the Forum to Copy drop-down menu.

   2. Enter the Title of the New Forum, select the Copy topics checkbox if you are also copying the Topics associated with the Forum.

   3. If you have pinned a message to any of the Topics you are copying, select Copy pinned threads.

   4. Click Copy.

5. If you select Copy a Topic.

   1. Select the Forum that contains the topic to create a copy of from the Forum to Copy drop-down menu.

   2. Select the Topic you would like to copy from the Topic to Copy drop-down menu.

   3. Enter the New Topic Title and select the Destination Forum that you want the topic associated with.

   4. If you have pinned a message to any of the Topics you are copying, select Copy pinned threads.

   5. Click Copy.

Reordering Forums and Topics

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Click the More Actions button and select Reorder from the drop-down menu.
   
   

3. Change the corresponding order in the Sort Order to determine the new order of the Forums and Topics.

4. Click Save.

Restricting Forums and Topics

There are many options and criteria that can be used to restrict a Discussion Forum and/or Topic. For more information on these options please see the Release Conditions documentation.

Deleting discussion forums, topics, threads, or posts.

To delete a forum, topic, thread, or post from Discussions tool

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. On the Discussions List page, click the context menu of the forum, topic, thread or post you want to delete by clicking the down arrow beside the name and click Delete, Delete Thread, or Delete Post.
   
   

3. To confirm the deletion, click Yes.

Restoring deleted Forums or Topics

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Click the More Actions button and select Restore from the drop-down menu.
   
   

3. You will be taken to a page with a list of all the Forums and Topics that have been deleted from the course.

4. Click the Restore button to the right of the Forum or Topic that you would like to restore.
   
   

    

Grading Forums and Topics

To grade a Discussion Topic you must first associate the topic with a Grade item. For more information on creating Grade items see the Grades documentation.

Associating a Discussion Topic with a Grade Item

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Click the down arrow beside the Topic you want to associate with a Grade Item.

3. Click Edit Topic.

4. Assign a Grade Out Of score and then choose In Grade Book and choose whether to create a Grade Item or Link to Existing.

5. Click Save and Close, or Save.

Assessing a Discussion Post

Below the Discussion Topic Title, you will see an icon of a Rosette. This indicates topics that can be assessed.

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Click the down arrow beside the Topic you want to assess and select Assess Topic.

3. Click on the Assessments tab.

4. Select the name of the student you want to assess.

5. This will open a new window where you can enter the Overall Grade any Feedback.

    

6. If you want the score and feedback to be available immediately, click the Publish button, or to publish all feedback later, click the Save Draft button. This will save the assessment and return to the Assess topic page.

7. To publish the Topic scores and Feedback for all students, select Publish All Feedback and click Save and Close.

Composing, Reading, Replying and Deleting Messages

Composing Messages

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. From the Discussions list page, click the Topic title of the Topic that you would like to post to.

3. Click the Start a New Thread button.

4. A compose window will open where you can add the subject line of your message and compose your message. Click the arrow to the left of Add attachments to upload a file, record audio, or record video. If this message is important and you want it to remain at the top of the Discussion Topic list you can select Pin Thread to keep it at the top and subscribe to this thread.
   
   

5. Click Post.

Reading Threads

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Click the title of the Discussion Topic you want to read.

3. The Discussion Topic will show you the messages that have been posted. If the full message is not displaying on your screen, click the down arrow beside more in the message window.

4. Depending on the Discussion Topic View you have set, you will see the option to Mark individual messages as Read or Mark all Read.
   
   

Replying to Messages

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Click the title of the Discussion Topic you want to reply to.

3. Select the message you want to reply to by clicking its subject line.

4. Click the Reply to Thread button.
   
   

5. A compose window will open where you can add the subject line of your message and compose your message. Click the arrow to the left of Add attachments to upload a file, record audio, or record video.

6. Click Post to add the reply.

Deleting Messages

You delete messages posted by yourself and other users.

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Click the title of the Discussion Topic that the message you want to delete is in.

3. Click the down arrow to the right of the thread or reply you want to delete and select Delete Thread or Delete Post.

Subscribing to Forums and Topics

1. From your course navbar, navigate to Connect/Discussions.

2. Select the Blue Star Below the Forum name or to the right of the Topic name and select Subscribe.

3. A new window will open allowing you to set your notification. From this window, you can determine the notification method by choosing either to include the notifications for this Topic in your mini bar only, summary of activity or as an Instant notification.

    

   Click Subscribe.

Discussion Settings

For more information regarding Discussion and other Account settings please see the Account Settings documentation.