Discussion Board

Discussion Board


Description

The Discussion Board is a tool that can be used to communicate with the instructor and other students. This feature is similar to chatting or Instant Messaging, but users are not present at the same time to converse on-line. An additional advantage of the discussion board is that all conversations are logged and organized, making it easy to view later. Conversations are grouped into threads that contain a main posting and all related topics.

Note: For Discussions to be effective, it is important to participate.

Creating a New Discussion

To submit a new message:

  • Select your course from the Courses you are participating in list.
  • Click the Communication button.
  • Select Discussion Board. This displays all the forums that have been created for the course.
  • To enter a forum, click on the Forum's title. This displays the Forum Title page.
  • From here, click the Add New Thread button. This displays the Create New Message page. Here you can add the subject of the discussion and the message. Note: The subject is what is visible when someone first visits the discussion board.
  • Decide if you want to add any attachments. If so, click Browse to locate the file. Click Submit to enter the Discussion topic. This displays the Title page. Click OK to finalize.
  • To enter more Discussions, repeat these steps.

Participating in a Current Discussion

To reply to a message:

  • Select the forum you wish to enter.
  • Select the message you wish to reply to. This displays the message.
  • Click the Reply button on the far right. This displays the Reply Message page.
  • Enter your reply in the Message field. You may or may not enter a new Subject. Note: You can reference the original message by scrolling to the bottom of the page. You also can add an attachment by clicking Browse and locating the file you wish to attach.
  • Click Preview to view what the message looks like (this is good for checking on spelling/grammar) or click Submit to enter the reply. Notice the reply underneath the original message.