Once you have saved your settings click the Discussions List quick link to return to the main discussion listing.

Discussion Boards have two sections:

• Forums
  • Used to house/organize similar items, much like a filing cabinet drawer would hold similar items like radiographs or tissue slides.
• Topics
  • Used to denote individual items which students can comment on and discuss, much like an individual client's radiograph or medical record.

Forums come first.

Select New Forum from the listing of links in the Forums & Topics List in the center of the screen. This is where you will create each of the Forums (individual drawers) to hold your specific discussion items.

After selecting New Forum you will be prompted to enter a name for the forum.

Most instructors include multiple Topics in a forum which are of the same category i.e., Examinations, includes quizzes, midterm and final.

Give your Forum a name that will allow you to add multiple topics.

Note: Items with a red asterisk () are required items when creating Forums.

For our purposes we will create a Forum called General Questions which we can then add specific, multiple topics to for student commenting.

Check the Create a new topic in this forum with the same title checkbox only of you want to have a single topic in this forum. Leave it unchecked if you want to have multiple topics with different names.

Enter a Description for this forum which will guide students through the process of posting messages. It is helpful if utilizing a Forum for multiple topics to state in the description which types of topics will be included in the Forum.

If you are going to utilize the Forum as a place where students may ask questions and expect them to be answered by a faculty member, it is a good idea to enter something in the description setting the expectation of when students should expect to find a response.

Note: As a faculty member you will also want to make sure you review the discussion postings on a daily basis if you are going to offer this service.

While entering your Description you may utilize the Basic and Advanced tabs to enable text formatting tools. Click the pencil () icon to enable these tools. These tools behave similar to the tools found in Microsoft Word.

Available tools include:

• Cut
• Copy
• Paste
  • Paste all
  • Paste just text (no formatting)
  • Paste text with Word formating
• Undo
• Do
• Bold
• Italic
• Underline
• Color
• Left align
• Center
• Right align
• Justify
• Bulleted list (like this one)
• Ordered list (numbered)
• Outdent list (bulleted and ordered lists)
• Indent list (bulleted and ordered lists)
• Horizontal line (between sections)
• Subscript
• Superscript
• Strikethrough
• Format (heading styles)
• Font family
• Font size
• Images
• Special characters (copyright, trademark etc.)
• Math equations
• Linking
• Spell check

Additionally you may allow students to post anonymous messages to the Discussion Board. If you want to allow this, check the checkbox beside Allow anonymous messages. This will give students a checkbox option during message creation to flag their posting as anonymous i.e., not including their name.

Note: Anonymous messages should not be utilized if grades will be assigned for student posting on the Discussion Board.

As the instructor you may also set up your Forum so that all messages must be approved prior to being posted to the Discussion Board. If this option is checked you will receive an email stating there are new messages to be approved. You must approve them before students are able to see them in the Discussion Board.

Note: Use the approval option sparingly as this creates an enormous amount of work if the Discussion Board is being utilized to enable student collaboration.