Faculty Tools

Discussion Board

The Discussion Board tool lets you create class conversations to enhance a website. Blackboard groups conversations in threads that contain a main posting and all replies to that main posting.

Click to learn more about FERPA: Student Privacy and this tool.

Creating a New Forum

From Control Panel:

1. Click on the Discussion Boards link in the Course Tools section.
2. Click on Add Forum button.
   
3. Type information in the appropriate fields.
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on the Submit button.
   Note: You must either allow your students to create new threads or create a thread so that your students can post within this Forum.

Forum Settings:

• Allow anonymous posts – Enable this option to let users post messages anonymously. Blackboard still requires that the user be enrolled in the course to post messages.
• Allow author to edit message after posting – Enable this option to let users edit their own messages after their initial posting.
• Allow author to remove own posted messages – Enable this option to let users remove their own posted messages.
• Allow file attachments – Enable this option to let users upload supplementary files with their postings.
• Allow new threads – Enable this option to let users post new messages.

Forum User Settings:

• Admin – Use this option to change a normal user to an administrator.
• Normal – Use this option to change an administrator to a normal user.
• Block – Use this option to block specific users from accessing the forum.
• Unblock – Use this option to unblock specific users from accessing the forum.
  Note: You can see each user’s current status to the left of their username. An “a” means the user has administrator access that you can remove if you desire. An “A” means the user has permanent administrator privileges that you cannot remove. A “b” means the user is blocked and cannot access the forum.

Reading/Responding to a Thread

From the Course view:

1. Click on the Discussion Boards link in the Communication section.
2. Click on the Discussion link of the discussion you want to enter.
3. Click on the Thread link that you want to read.
   
   

If you want to respond to the thread:

4. Click on the Reply button.
   
5. Type information in the appropriate fields.
6. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on the Submit button.

Options:

• Post Message as Anonymous – Enable this option to not let other users know you posted the message.
• Note: Your instructor must have this option enabled for it to show up. If you do not see it, your instructor has disabled this option.
• Attachment – Use this option if you want to upload a supplementary file with your posting.

Creating a New Thread

From the Course view:

1. Click on the Discussion Board link in the Communication section.
2. Click on the Discussion link of the discussion you want to enter.
3. Click on the Add New Thread button.
   
4. Type information in the appropriate text fields.
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on the Submit button.

Options:

• Post Message as Anonymous – Enable this option to not let other users know you posted the message.
• Attachment – Use this option to upload a supplementary file with your posting.

Searching the Forum

From the Course view:

1. Click on the Discussion Board link in the Communication section.
2. Click on the Discussion link of the discussion you want to enter.
3. Click on the Search button.
   
4. Click on a Search radio button.
5. Choose the users you want the search to return from the By Author list.
   
6. Type your search in the Keywords field.
7. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on the Submit button.

Search Options:

• All – Use this option to search all text in the forum
• Subject – Use this option to search only the subjects of the messages.
• Subject & Body – Use this option to search the subject and body message of the posts.

Sort By Options:

• Default – The default sort option is Date.
• Author – Use this option to sort by the authors’ last names.
• Date – Use this option to sort by the messages’ dates.
• Subject – Use this option to sort by the messages’ subjects.

Display Options:

• Messages per page – Use this option to set how many search results Blackboard returns per page.
• Expand messages – Enable this option Blackboard to display the message body of each thread it returns.

Collecting Discussion Threads

This will allow you to read all the postings on one page.

From the Course view:

1. Click on the Discussion Board link in the Communication section.
2. Click on the Discussion link of the discussion you want to enter.
3. Click on the Show Options tab.
   
4. Click on the Select All button.
5. Click on the Collect All button.

Archiving Forums

You can archive Discussion Board threads and made them available to Students. Archived threads are removed from the forum and stored separately.

From the Discussion Board tool:

1. Click on the Forum you wish to archive.
2. Click on the Archives link.
3. Click on the Add Archive button.
4. Type the name and description in the text fields and click on the Submit button.
   The name of the archive will be displayed on the page.
5. Click on the Modify button.
   
6. Select the Threads to archive within the "Select threads in forum to move to archive" section. Click on the Submit button.

More Information

Q: How do I sort the messages?
A: Use the Sort By drop-down menu at the bottom of the messages. You can sort by author, date, or subject.