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How do I add restrictions to a discussion topic?

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You can add conditions to the availability of a topic in three ways:

  1. You can use the Availability Dates to set from when and until when a topic is available.
  2. You can use Release Conditions to determine under which conditions the topic becomes available. You can add multiple release conditions to a topic.
  3. You can use Group and Section Restrictions to determine for which group or section the topic becomes available.
  • Go to Activities in the navbar of your course.
  • Click Discussions. You will end up at the Discussions homepage.
  • Click the arrow behind the desired topic.
  • Click Edit Topic.

Availability Dates

  1. Click the arrow next to Availability Dates & Conditions to unfold the tab.
  2. At Start Date, choose from when students can see the topic and reply to it.
  3. At End Date, choose from when students can no longer view the topic.
  4. Click Visible with access restricted below the Start Date and End Date. You will be shown three options:

The choice you make here determines if and how students can view the topic before the Start Date and after the End Date.

  • If you choose Visible with access restricted, students can see the topic in the list, but not open it yet.
  • If you choose Visible with submission restricted, students can open the topic, but not post anything yet.
  • If you choose Hidden, the topic is not visible for students.
  • If you enable Add availability dates to Calendar, the Start Date and End Date will also appear in the Brightspace Calendar.
  • Click Done to confirm your choices.

For the date restrictions, it is possible to make a different choice for what students see before the Start Date and after the End Date. For example, you can choose not to make the topic visible at all before the Start Date and keep it visible after the End Date, but without the ability to still post in the topic.

If you enable that the availability dates are added to the Calendar for the Start Date, this also happens automatically for the End Date and vice versa. The same goes for when you disable this option.

Release Conditions

Under Release Conditions, you can add conditions for when the topic becomes available:

  • Have you previously created a release condition that you wish to use for this topic? You can click Add Existing and choose which of these should also apply to this topic:
    • Select the desired conditions.
    • Click Attach.
  • Click Create New to add new release conditons:
    • Select the desired conditions
    • Click Create.

If you have added release conditions, you will be shown a drop-down menu.

Choose whether students need to meet all conditions (All conditions must be met) or just one of the conditions (Any condition must be met).

Take a look at the manual What are release conditions and how can I use them? for more information and advice on release conditions.

Group and Section Restrictions

In the tab Availability Dates & Conditions, you can determine for who the the topic should be available. To do this, click Group and Section Restrictions and then Manage Restrictions.

  1. You can choose Restrict topic. If you enable this, you can select for which sections or groups within a section the topic should be available.
  2. You can also choose Restrict topic and separate the threads. You can then select a category with groups for which the topic should be available. If this option is enabled, students can only view threads within their own group, and not those of other groups within the category.

Click Done to confirm your choice.

Are you done adding restrictions? Click Save and Close in the bottom left-hand corner.

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