Discussions are a good way to:
- Enable students to collaborate: a discussion is a place where students come together online and can work together. You can create separate discussion topics for separate groups and give space to share files;
- To allow students to discuss a certain topic in an accessible way;
- Provide students with (peer) feedback: in a discussion topic, students can share files that everyone can see in the topic. For example, within the subject, students can provide peer feedback on the shared files and receive feedback on the files they share.
In Discussions you create a Discussion forum, to which you add discussion topics. A topic is the place where students can post and read messages. So students cannot discuss in a forum without topic(s).
Discussies homepage
- Navigate to Course Tools in your course's navbar.
- Click Discussions. You land on the Discussions homepage.
The Discussions homepage shows you an overview of all the forums and the accompanying topics that have been created for the specific course. This is the Discussions List.
The Subscriptions tab allows you to select how you want to receive notifications (in the form of an email) about discussions forums, topics, and threads to which you are subscribed.
The tab Group and Section Restrictions allows you to see which group of students you have granted access to which forum and/or topic. You can also change the access from here. Click on Save when you are done editing.
You can generate statistics about the forums, topics, and/or their users using the Statistics tab. You can use this tool to see which students are participating in a discussion, which topic generates the most or least reactions, et cetera. You can export this data to Excel.
- Click New to create a new discussion forum or topic.
- Click More Actions to:
- copy a forum or copy a topic to a different forum (Copy).
- change the order in which the forums and topics are displayed (Reorder).
- select topics and/or forums to delete (Delete).
- restore deleted topics and/or forums (Restore). - Click Collapse All Forums to collapse all topics. This will provide you with a better overview of all the available forums in the course.
- Click Settings to change the settings of the fora (Discussion Settings).
Instructies over het beheren, toevoegen en beoordelen van discussies bekijk je in de artikelen:
- Hoe beheer ik mijn discussies?
- Hoe voeg ik een bestaande discussie toe aan Inhoud?
- Hoe beoordeel ik een discussie onderwerp of publicatie (score-onderdeel, rubric)?
Do you want to know how to create a discussion forum and discussion topics? Please read:
- How do I create a discussion forum?
- How do I add restrictions to a discussion forum?
- How do I create a topic in a discussion forum?
- How do I add restrictions to a discussion topic?
Instructions about managing, adding, and assessing discussions can be found in the following articles:
Subscriptions
The Subscriptions tab shows you a list of the forums, topics, and threads to which you are currently subscribed to receive notifications.
You will automatically be subscribed to every thread within a forum or topic when you subscribe yourself to said forum or topic. You can read more about subscribing to a forum or topic in the article How do I manage my discussions?
- Select whether you want to see all of your subscriptions or just those related to forums, topics and/or threads. Click on Apply.
- You can select whether you want to receive the notifications in the minibar, as an email, or in your daily summary of activity below Default Notification Method.
You can select the notification method for each forum, topic, and thread separately.
If you are subscribed to a forum, topic, or thread you will see it in the screen and you can unsubscribe as well.
Group and Section Restrictions
You can use restrictions to assign fora and topics to certain groups. Only the students in this group will be able to see and use the intended forum or topic.
- Select for which group you want to see the restrictions for what forum.
- Click on Automatically create restricted topics if you want to create topics in a forum that are only accessible to specific groups. The topics in the forum will automatically be named after the groups in the selected group category.
- Adjust the check marks if you want to grant/remove access to certain forums and/or topics.
- Click on Save to save your adjustments.
Statistics: Users
The Statistics tab allows you to see the statistics of the users of the forums and topics.
- Below Org Unit Statistics you can see the total amount of posted threads and replies (Replies) and the total amount of unapproved posts.
- Below User Statistics you can see the activities per student. Select whether you want to see the statistics of all the students or the statistics from a specific group behind View By. Then click on Apply.
- Click Export to CSV File to download the statistics as a CSV file (which can be opened in Excel).
Statistieken: Forums en onderwerpen
- Below Org Unit Statistics you can see the total amount of posted threads and replies (Replies), the amount of pinned threads, and the amount of unapproved posts.
- Below Forum and Topic Statistics you can see the activity per forum and topic.
- Click on Export to CSV File to download the statistics as a CSV file (which can be opened in Excel).