Forums are used to organize discussions and may be added or modified by accessing the add forum page or the modify forum page. While you are the only one who can create a new forum, you can enable other users to manage a forum once it is created.
To add a forum:
Step 1: Open the course site you wish to access in the MyUMFlint or Courses tab.
Step 2: Click on the Communication link under the Tools section in the left margin of the course site.
Step 3: Click on the Discussion Board link.
Step 4: Click on the + Forum link at the top of the page. The Add Forum page will appear.
Step 5: Type in a name and description for the forum.
Step 6: Adjust forum availability to meet your preferences.
Leave the date and time restrictions boxes empty if you want the forum to be available to students throughout the semester. Selecting "Display After" and "Display Until" will restrict dates of availability to the dates and times you set.
Step 7: Adjust forum settings to meet your preferences.
Options include:
• Allow anonymous posts - If this feature is turned off users are identified by their username whenever they post a reply. It is generally a bad idea to turn on this option since there is no way for the instructor or the system administrator to determine who made an objectionable post. If this feature is enabled, the forum cannot be graded.
• Allow author to remove own posts - Allowing an author to remove their own posts can disrupt the flow of conversation and create he-said-she-said situations. Also generally a bad idea to enable.
• Allow author to modify own published posts - Similar to allow author to remove. Because a post could be edited down to being blank, this also requires consideration before being enabled.
• Allow post tagging - This allows forum managers to mark posts with "tags," or labels, which can be used for searching and filtering by other users. For example, students could search a forum purely for posts made that have been tagged by their professor as being related to "philosophy" or "post-colonialism," and so on.
• Allow users to reply with quote - Allows users to automatically include the text of the original post in their responses.
• Allow file attachments - Allow file attachments is a nice easy way for people to share files with anyone who has access to the discussion board. For example, a discussion board could be created to distribute final project results among members of a course.
• Allow members to create new threads - Threads are the next lower level of hierarchy in a discussion board below the Forum. A forum can have multiple threads. Allow members to create new threads lets students create their own sub-navigation inside of the Forum. Generally, the purpose of the forum will dictate whether or not users can start threads. A moderated, graded forum used to evaluate student performance will usually be tightly controlled. In this case, it would not be appropriate to allow users to create threads. Other forums are designed for users to share opinions and thoughts on tangential or unrelated topics. In this case, it is safe to allow users to create threads and spark discussions.
• Allow members to subscribe to threads - Subscribing to threads means that an email will be sent when a thread that is subscribed to has a new response.
• Allow members to rate posts – If this option is enabled, posts can be rated with zero to five stars by other members of the forum.
• Force moderation of posts - Forum moderation requires that posts be reviewed and approved by a forum moderator (usually, but not necessarily, an instructor) before they can be viewed publicly.
• Grade - Enabling grading will cause an entry for the forum or thread to be created in the grade book. Grading for students happens directly in the discussion board.
Step 5: After you have chosen the forum settings, click Submit. The forum will be created and appear at the bottom of the Discussion Board page. You have four options from here.
