Within a discussion forum, you can find topics to discuss. A forum may contain multiple topics. (For example: a forum titled Democracy versus Dictactorship may contain a topic Arguments for democracy/dictatorship, and a topic Arguments against democracy/dictatorship).
- Go to Activities in the navbar.
- Click Discussions.
- Click New and then New Topic.
If the Discussions homepage already contains forums, you can also click the arrow behind the name of a forum and select Add Topic. Both ways lead to the same topic menu.
- Choose a title for your topic.
- Choose to which existing forum you want to add the topic. Would you like to create a new forum for this topic? Then click Create Forum.
- Grade Out Of is set to Ungraded by default. Do you want to attach a grade to discussions posts? Then enter the maximum amount of points here.
- If you have entered the maximum amount of points, click In Grade Book. You can choose between four options. You can choose:
- Not in Grade Book if you do not want to include the grade in the grade book;
- Add to Grade Book if you want to include it in the grade book as a loose grade;
- Edit or Link to Existing if you want to link the grade to another grade;
- Reset to Ungraded if you want to go back to not attaching a grade to this topic.
- Add a description to the topic if you wish.
On the right-hand side you will find three boxes. The first is Availability Dates & Conditions. Here you can add restrictions to your discussion topic. The second box is Post & Completion. Click the arrow to unfold the tab.
- Enable Allow learners to hide their name from other learners if you want to allow anonymous messages.
- Enable Learners must start a thread before they can view or reply to other threads if you require students to first start a threat before they can reply to someone else's thread.
- Enable Posts must be approved before they display in the topic if you want to approve posts before they are displayed in the topic.
The third box on the right-hand side is Evaluation & Feedback. Here you can add a rubric to your topic. You can also choose how threads are assessed.
- Here you can add a rubric.
- Enable Allow evaluation of individual posts if you want to assess each post individually.
Under Calculation Method you can choose between six different ways to calculate the final grade. Choose:- Average post score for an average of all individual scores;
- Maximum post score for the maximum of all individual scores;
- Minimum post score for the minimum of all individual scores;
- Mode post score - Highest on multiple for the score that appears most frequently;
- Mode post score - Lowest on multiple for the score that appears least frequently;
- Sum of post scores for a total of all individual scores combined.
- Here you can choose whether students are allowed to rate posts. Have you enabled this? Then choose:
- Five-Star Rating Scheme if you want participants to be able to rate the discussion posts based on a scale of one to five;
- Up Vote/Down Vote Rating Scheme if you want the participants to give a discussion post a thumbs up or a thumbs down;
- Up Vote Only Rating Scheme if you want participants to only be able to give a thumbs up.
Click Save and Close to save your topic. It will now be visible in the forum.
Read the article How do I rate a discussion post?
You can also create discussion topics per group, as long as you have no yet linked a forum to your groups. You can learn how to do this in the article How do I create a Discussion Topic per group?