Creating a Discussion Forum and Topic

Create a discussion forum

You can use forums to organise your discussion topics into categories. Your unit can have multiple forums and topics, but you must create a forum before you can create a topic since all topics belong to forums.

Note: When Creating a Forum you can automatically create a Topic with the same name at the same time.

1. On the navbar, click Communications then Discussions
2. On the Discussions List page, from the New button drop-down menu, click New Forum.
3. Enter a title for your new forum.
4. Enter a description for your new forum.
5. To create a Topic at the same time with the same title tick this option.
6. In the Options section, select any of the following check boxes:
   • Allow anonymous posts - To enable users to post anonymously.
   • A moderator must approve individual posts before they display in the forum - To ensure 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 - To ensure user participation.
   • Display forum descriptions in topics - To provide instructors the option to display a discussion forum description within a discussion topic description.
7. In the Availability section, select Visibility options for your forum.
8. Select Locking Options for your forum. Locking your forum prevents users from accessing it until it is unlocked.
9. Click Save and Close.

Forum Details Screen below:

Create a discussion topic

Your unit can have multiple forums and topics, but you must create a forum before you can create a topic since all topics belong to forums.

1. On the navbar, click Communications then Discussions
2. On the Discussions List page, from the New button, click New Topic.
3. From the drop-down list, select the forum you want to put your topic in. If you want to create a new forum for your topic, click New Forum.
4. To grant everyone access to the topic and restrict learners to only see threads from their own group or section, under Topic Type, select Group or section topic, or choose Open topic if everyone is to see this.
   Note: You cannot edit the topic type once you save the topic.
5. Enter your New Topic Details.
6. Select Availability options for your topic.
7. Select Locking Options for your topic. Locking your topic prevents users from accessing it until it is unlocked.
8. Click Save and Close.

Topic details screen below:

To only show the Discussion forum to a specific group you can do so on the restrictions tab:

Note: You can also create forums and Topics from within the groups tool if you wish, so that specific forums can only be seen by certain groups.