Discussions
How community administrators can start discussions
As a community administrator, navigate to a community and click 'Discussions'.
Click 'Add Discussion Forum'.
Provide a title, description and category. The forum category will be the most easily viewable label for users, think of it as a folder or label for the discussion forum. You can eventually create multiple discussion forums within one category. The description will be visible to users once they have clicked the category name.
Set permissions for the discussion forum. You can customize which community member types can view the forum, write new posts, and reply to posts.
Set the Time Release Options for the discussion forum. This controls when the discussion forum will be accessible to users.
Click 'Save.'
To edit or delete an existing discussion forum, navigate to the discussions page, click on the category name, and then click 'edit' or 'delete' beside the discussion forum you want to modify. If you delete a discussion and it was the only discussion forum in a category, the category will also be removed.
Note that community members who participate in discussion forums have the option to post anonymously, however, community administrators will be able to see the identity of all users who post to a discussion, whether anonymous or not. If you have faculty in community administrator roles responding to discussion posts it may be worth letting them know that students may be posting anonymously.
Using Discussions in a Course Website/Community: Note that if you use Course Groups you will have the option to customize a discussion board to have a specific course group as its audience.
How community members can participate in a discussion thread
Navigate to a community and click 'Discussions'.
Click on a discussion category name.
Click on a discussion forum title.
Creating a new post
Click 'New Post'.
Add a post title and body.
Users can choose to make their comment anonymous by checking the box beside 'Hide my name'. Note that the user's identity will still be visible to community administrators.
File Attachments: Users can select a file from their computer to upload with their comment.
Set the Time Release Options to set when the comment will be visible to community members.
Click 'Save.'
The author of a comment and community administrators can edit or delete existing comments by clicking 'edit' or 'delete' beside a comment.
Responding to a comment
Navigate to a community and click 'Discussions'.
Click on a discussion category name.
Click on a discussion forum title.
Click on a topic title.
Click 'Reply to Post'.
Add text, decide whether to make the post anonymous, attach a file if required, set time release, and click 'Reply'.
The author of a comment and community administrators can edit or delete existing comments by clicking 'edit' or 'delete' beside a comment.
Subscribing to Discussions
Users can use subscribe to discussion forums using an RSS feed or email notifications.
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