How to add a Forum. Outline: The purpose of this guide is to show users how to add a Forum activity inside the LMS. What will the guide cover?

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1 Page 1 of 15 How to add a Forum The Forum activity allows students to exchange ideas about a topic in a public discussion forum by posting comments. You can use the Forum activity to post important messages, generate class discussions, create FAQs, facilitate peer review and evaluate students based on their responses to open-ended questions. Outline: The purpose of this guide is to show users how to add a Forum activity inside the LMS. What will the guide cover? The guide will cover how to create a forum, type of forums, how to create posts, enable linking and adding a random entry block. How long will this take? This activity should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. What technology will it use? LMS Materials needed? A device that allows updating LMS content.

2 Page 2 of 15 TABLE OF CONTENTS Adding a Forum activity... 4 Enable Editing... 4 Add an activity or resource... 4 Add a Forum... 5 Complete the Forum settings... 6 Fill in Forum details... 6 Check the settings for attachments and word count... 6 Subscription and tracking... 7 RSS... 7 Post threshold for blocking... 8 Turnitin plagiairsm plugin in settings... 8 Grade... 8 Ratings... 9 Edit the Module Settings... 9 Restrict Access Activity Completion Tags Competencies Save your page Adding a discussion topic and post to a forum Navigate to the forum Add a new discussion topic Add discussion post Reply to a post... 13

3 Page 3 of 15 Select post Reply to post Rating a post Further Support End of guide Types of Forums There are five forum types that can be set up: A single simple discussion - A single discussion topic which everyone can reply to (cannot be used with separate groups) Each person posts one discussion - Each student can post exactly one new discussion topic, which everyone can then reply to Q and A forum - Students must first post their perspectives before viewing other students' posts Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format - An open forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time, and in which discussion topics are displayed on one page with "Discuss this topic" links Standard forum for general use - An open forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time

4 Page 4 of 15 Adding a Forum activity Enable Editing On the top right of the page, select Turn editing on Add an activity or resource 1. Navigate to the week / section to which you would like to add a forum. 2. Select Add an activity or resource

5 Page 5 of 15 Add a Forum 1. From the menu that appears, select Forum 2. Select Add

6 Page 6 of 15 Complete the Forum settings Fill in Forum details 1. Add Name 2. Add Description if required 3. Select if you want to Display description on subject page 4. Select Forum type Check the settings for attachments and word count 1. Select the Maximum attachment size (subject limit is 200MB) 2. Select the Maximum number of attachments 3. Select whether to Display word count for posts

7 Page 7 of 15 Subscription and tracking 1. Subscription mode. When a participant is subscribed to a forum it means they will receive forum post notifications. There are 4 subscription mode options: a. Optional subscription - Participants can choose whether to be subscribed b. Forced subscription - Everyone is subscribed and cannot unsubscribe c. Auto subscription - Everyone is subscribed initially but can choose to unsubscribe at any time d. Subscription disabled - Subscriptions are not allowed Note: users have control over their subscriptions and can choose to subscribe/unsubscribe and change their own notification preferences at any time. Any subscription mode changes will only affect users who enroll in the subject in the future, and not existing users 2. Read tracking - Read tracking enables participants to easily check which posts they have not yet seen by highlighting any new posts. If set to Optional, participants can choose whether to turn tracking on or off via a link in the administration block. (Users must also enable forum tracking in their forum preferences.) Set whether you want to display page description on subject homepage. RSS To enable the RSS feed for this activity, select either concepts with author or concepts without author to be included in the feed.

8 Page 8 of 15 Post threshold for blocking 1. Time period for blocking. Students can be blocked from posting more than a given number of posts in a given time period. Users with the capability mod/forum:postwithoutthrottling are exempt from post limits. 2. Post threshold for blocking. This setting specifies the maximum number of posts which a user can post in the given time period. Users with the capability mod/forum:postwithoutthrottling are exempt from post limits. 3. Post threshold for warning. Students can be warned as they approach the maximum number of posts allowed in a given period. This setting specifies after how many posts they are warned. Users with the capability mod/forum:postwithoutthrottling are exempt from post limits. Turnitin plagiairsm plugin in settings For instructions on the Turnitin plagiarism plug in setting see How to create a Turnitin Assignment Guide. Grade Select if the glossary is a graded item, Graded category and Grade to pass

9 Page 9 of 15 Ratings If you are grading the Forum item, you can use rating to mark individual entries to aggregate into a final grade. 1. The Aggregate type defines how ratings are combined to form the final grade in the gradebook. Average of ratings - The mean of all ratings Count of ratings - The number of rated items becomes the final grade. Note that the total cannot exceed the maximum grade for the activity. Maximum - The highest rating becomes the final grade Minimum - The smallest rating becomes the final grade Sum - All ratings are added together. Note that the total cannot exceed the maximum grade for the activity. If "No ratings" is selected, then the activity will not appear in the gradebook. 2. Select Scale type of grading used for this activity. If "scale" is chosen, you can then choose the scale from the "scale" dropdown. If using "point" grading, you can then enter the maximum grade available for this activity. 3. Add Maximum grade for activity 4. If required Restrict ratings to items with dates in this range Edit the Module Settings Under Common module settings select Show from drop down menu for the Visible option.

10 Page 10 of 15 Restrict Access Restrict access allows you to control access based on date, grade, users and activity completion. Activity Completion If Activity completion has been activated in your subject settings, it will appear in your activity or resource settings. You can elect for a student to mark the activity as completed or for graded items automatically indicate completion to students. Activity completion is indicated by a check box to the right of the activity on the home page. Tags Tags not currently used. Competencies For more information on enabling Competencies, please refer to the Competences guide. Save your page At the bottom of the page, select Save and return to subject.

11 Page 11 of 15 Adding a discussion topic and post to a forum Navigate to the forum Navigate to the Forum activity and click on the link Add a new discussion topic From the forum page click on Add a new discussion topic.

12 Page 12 of 15 Add discussion post On the forum page 1. Add Subject 2. Add Message for post Message contents can be added in the text editor which allows you to format your content similar to a word document. Embed codes for multimedia and widgets can be added by selecting code view icons from the WYSIWYG menu 3. Check subscription settings via Discussion subscriptions 4. Add an Attachment if required 5. Pinned discussions will appear at the top of a forum 6. Send forum post notifications with no editing-time delay. If left unchecked this will allow editing of post for up to 30 minutes from submission. 7. Post a copy to all groups posts a copy of this message to all groups you have access to. Participants in groups you do not have access to will not see this post 8. Group allows you to restrict posts to particular groups 9. Post to forum

13 Page 13 of 15 Reply to a post Select post Select the post you wish to reply to from the list under Discussion Reply to post From the menu links on the right bottom of the post, select Reply. Complete post details as per adding a post instructions above

14 Page 14 of 15 Rating a post If you have enabled ratings in your forum settings then you can add ratings to individual student contributions. On the post page you will notice a Rate drop down box on the lower right of the entry. Click on this box and select the rating. Further Support Staff For support in the use of the LMS, Echo360, Turnitin, PebblePad and Manage My Subjects contact ASK EDTECH. Students Go to Student IT Support End of guide

15 Page 15 of 15 Copyright Published in Australia By La Trobe University. La Trobe University 2017 Unless otherwise stated this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.