The forum activity allows you and your students to asynchronously communicate with each other by posting comments in discussion threads. Forum posts can be rated for a grade.
- From your course’s main page, click the
button in the upper-right. - With editing turned on, click
in the section where you want to add the assignment. - From the menu that appears, click the
next to 
and click the 
button at the bottom of the menu. - Enter a
and a 
. The forum name is how the forum will be displayed on the course page, in the gradebook, etc. The description is what the students will see before they post to the forum. - Specify a
. There are five forum types to choose from: 
– This is the default format where anyone can start a new discussion thread at any time. 
– A single discussion topic which everyone can reply to. 
– Each student can post one discussion topic, which everyone can reply to. 
– Students cannot view other students’ posts until they themselves have posted. 
– Similar to the standard forum, but discussion topics are displayed on one page with “Discuss this topic” links. - If you plan on grading forum posts, open the
section and set the 
. This will determine how the grade is calculated based on post ratings: 
– The mean of all ratings. 
– The number of rated posts becomes the final grade. 
– The highest rating becomes the final grade. 
– The smallest rating becomes the final grade. 
– All ratings are added together. - Additionally, if you want the forum to be worth points in the course, set the
to the number of points the forum should be worth. Always set it to an actual numerical value. Do not use a scale or the forum will not have points assigned to it. - Click the
button when done.
Click here to watch a video tutorial on this subject provided by Atomic Learning. Be sure to log in to Atomic Learning before attempting to view this tutorial.
By using the Q and A forum, you can help ensure that your students are providing original responses to a discussion question that you post. With a Q and A forum, students cannot see each other’s responses until they themselves respond, and students will be able to formulate independent thoughts on your discussion topic. In this way, you’ll get a wider variety of responses to your prompt.