Forums: How to use discussion forums in Moodle

Forums: How to use discussion forums in Moodle

Adding a Forum

Click 'Add an activity or resource' in the Section/Topic where you want the 'Discussion Forum' to be.

Choose 'Forum' from the list of 'Activities' and click the 'Add' button.

Type a name for the 'Forum' , and a description if you would like. Tip: The description might be instructions on what you would like students to use the forum for as they will see it at the top.

A number of different types of 'Discussion Forum' are available in Moodle depending on requirements. Choose which type of Forum you require from the drop-down menu (see below).

• Standard forum for general use: An open forum where anyone can start a new topic at any time; this is the best general-purpose forum.
• Each person posts one discussion: Each person can post exactly one new discussion topic (everyone can reply to them though); this is useful when you want each student to start a discussion about, say, their reflections on the week's topic or as an introduction task, and everyone else responds to these.
• A single simple discussion: A single topic discussion developed on one page, which is useful for short focused discussions.
• Q and A Forum: Students may reply with an answer, but they will not see the replies of other Students to the question in that discussion until they have themselves replied to the same discussion (this acts as a way of encouragement and students are not influenced by other posts read before).

Another important consideration when setting up a 'Discussion Forum' is the 'Subscription mode'. When a user is subscribed to a forum it means that they will receive notifications (via popup and/or email, depending on the user’s messaging settings preferences) of each new posting. People can usually choose whether or not they want to be subscribed to each forum. However, the teacher can choose to force subscription on a particular forum in order for all participants to be subscribed automatically, even those that enrol at a later time.

There are 4 subscription mode options:

• Optional subscription: Participants can choose whether to be subscribed
• Forced subscription: Everyone is subscribed and cannot unsubscribe
• Auto subscription: Everyone is subscribed initially but can choose to unsubscribe at any time
• Subscription disabled: Subscriptions are not allowed.

1. When you're happy with all of your settings, scroll to the bottom of the settings page and click 'Save and display' or 'Save and Return to course'

To change the type of forum

• In edit settings of your forum, go to the drop-down menu for forum type and select the type you require.

types of forums

A Single Simple Discussion

This type of forum differs from the usual forum as this forum has only one thread, compared to multiple discussion topics in the typical forum.

Each person posts one discussion
Each person can create their own discussion topic, and then others can respond to it. 

Q and A forum
In this type of forum, the instructor begins by posting a question. The students are then expected to reply to the question. The unique part about this arrangement is that the students can only see answers posted by other students, once they have posted their answers. 

Standard forum for general use
This forum is one of the most used forum types in Moodle. Through this forum type, anyone can start new discussion topics, or respond to an existing one. This is best for a course enquiries forum.

Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format 
Similar to the one we discussed above, the only difference is in how the forum is displayed. With this forum type, you can see the full text of the first post in each forum

---

Restricting a forum to groups 

In the forum settings, under Restrict Access, select Add Restriction.

Choose Group from the restrictions available.

Select the group you want to assign the forum to. Only the members of that group and teachers in the course will be able to see the discussion that takes place there.



Sample usage: 

• A space for students to work together on a group project (they can discuss concepts and attach files).
• A space to enable pairs or small groups to provide informal feedback on each others work before submitting it for assessment