Content Creation

The 5 different types of discussion forum lend themselves to 5 discussion structures you can set up with your students:

• A single simple discussion is useful for short, focused discussions. It allows for a single thread, which displays on a single page. If an instructor attempts to create further threads, when submitted these new posts will be hidden from view, although they will be listed on the course home page as unread posts. For a format allowing multiple threads, select one of the Standard options.
  
  
• In a forum where Each person posts one discussion, each participant can only post one new discussion topic, although they can all reply to each others' topics. This is useful when you want each student to, say, reflect on the week's topic, and everyone else to respond to their reflections.
  
  
• In a Q and A Forum, a question is posed in the initial post of a discussion. Students must reply to this question with their own answer before other students' replies will be visible to them.
  
  
• The Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format works like the Standard forum for general use, but displays differently. Only the first post of a new topic displays on the forum page (the most recent topic first, as in a blog); users click Discuss this topic on that post to view and join in the discussion.
  
  
• In a Standard forum for general use, any participant can start a new topic at any time. All topics and their replies display at once, with the user's chosen layout (in nested form, if no layout is chosen).