Guides
Working with Forums
What is a Forum Activity?
Forum activities allow lecturers, tutors and students to exchange ideas about a topic in a public discussion forum by posting comments. Students can share information and benefit from each other’s opinions and input.
Lecturers have the option to add Forum activities to each subject. These can be structured
in different ways to enable students to reply to the forum topic, add further discussion topics,
add questions and can be structured to enable peer ratings against postings. Forum postings
can also be displayed in a number of different ways (oldest posting first, nested or threaded
format etc).
How do I access a Forum?
To access a forum, click on the Forum activity link (which has a double sided face graphic in front of it).
How do I respond to a forum topic?
Once you have accessed the forum, you will be able to determine what type of forum this is and the options available to you (whether you can reply to the topic and/or whether you have the option to add a new discussion topic, etc). See Forum Types & Subscription Modes for more information.
Forum Subscriptions
When a participant is subscribed to a forum it means they will receive email copies of forum posts. There are 4 subscription mode options:
- Optional subscription - Participants can choose whether to be subscribed
- Forced subscription - Everyone is subscribed and cannot unsubscribe
- Auto subscription - Everyone is subscribed initially but can choose to unsubscribe at any time
- Subscription disabled - Subscriptions are not allowed
To check whether you are subscribed to the forum, navigate to the forum and then check the forum administration from the settings block. In the example below the forum has optional subscription and the student can choose to select Subscribe to this forum.
Forum Types
News Forum: When a new LMS subject is created, a News Forum is automatically generated, which defaults to automatically subscribe all participants in a subject. This can be used by your lecturer to make any type of announcement relevant to the subject, e.g. exam dates and times, to inform students that the due date for a quiz or assignment has changed or special event announcements.
A single simple discussion – useful for short or time-limited discussions, on a single topic. Also useful for keeping students focussed on a specific issue. When a student clicks on the forum name, the discussion topic is displayed directly, (which they can reply to), without any options to add topics or other discussions.
Each person posts one discussion – useful for discussions that are somewhere between short, focussed discussions and large discussions. When a student clicks on the forum name, the option to Add a new discussion topic is available for the student to begin a new discussion topic. Once a student adds their topic, only discussions relating to this topic (including theirs) are displayed.
Q and A forum – useful if a particular question is to be asked. This type of forum requires a student to post once before they are able to view other students’ postings. When a student clicks on the forum name, the option to Add a new question is available for the student to add a new question. Students can continue to add more questions or add posts to an existing discussion by clicking the Discussion name.
Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format – an open forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time. When a student clicks on the forum name, the option to Add a new topic is available for the student to add a new topic for discussion. Students can continue to add more topics or respond to topics by clicking Discuss this topic.
Standard forum for general use – useful for large discussions that require monitoring or guidance, or for student-led social forums. When a student clicks on the forum name, the option to Add a new discussion topic is available for the student to add a new topic for discussion. Students can continue to add new discussion topics or respond to existing discussions by clicking the Discussion name.