Users can post discussion items and reply to other posts. This feature is similar to Chat, but is designed so that Students do not have to be online at the same time to communicate. Discussion Board conversations are logged and organized. Conversations are grouped into threads that contain a main posting and all related replies.
Note: Users may have the option to create Discussion Boards on topics of interest in the Community Tab. This option is made available by the System Administrator. For more information on this topic see Creating Community Discussion Boards in the Community Tab section.
Instructors create forums on specific topics in the Discussion Board. Students may access forums by clicking on the appropriate link in the Discussion Board. When a forum is accessed a page appears which lists the different threads in the forum. A thread is a series of posts. Participants can post new threads in a forum and reply to threads that have already been posted.
Note: Students are able to create new threads on the Discussion Board. If allowed by the Instructor other users can create and administer forums, otherwise Students will only be able to add threads to existing topics.
The Blackboard Academic Suite will not accept JavaScript in the Discussion Boards.
Follow the steps below to open the Discussion Board page.
Step 1 Open a Course.
Step 2 Click Discussion Board on the Course Menu or from the Communication area.
Step 3 To access a forum listed on the Discussion Board page click a forum topic link. The Discussion Board forum will appear.
The table below details the functions available on Discussion Board Forums.
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To . . . |
click . . . |
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start a new thread |
Add New Thread. The Create New Message page will appear. On the Create New Message page a new subject title and discussion description may be added. |
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view all messages |
the View all Messages up arrow. All messages appear. |
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view unread messages |
the View Unread Messages down arrow. All unread messages will be shown. |
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see all the threads and responses |
the Expand All plus icon. All threads and responses will appear. |
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see only the first message in each thread |
the Collapse All minus icon. The topic threads will appear. |
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read a post |
The link to a post. |
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view the tool bar |
Options tab. The Options tool bar will appear. |
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view messages that have been archived by the Instructor |
Click Here for Archives. A page will appear with the threads that have been archived from this forum. Archived messages must be made available by the Instructor. |
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sort the list of messages |
the Sort by: drop-down list and select one of the following options: · Author: sort messages by the author. · Date: sort messages by the earliest date. This is the default. · Subject: sort messages by the subject. |
The table below describes the functions available on the Options tab. Click Show Options to access these functions. To select multiple threads in a forum, choose the check box next to each thread that will be included.
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To . . . |
then . . . |
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select all threads and messages in the forum |
click Select All. |
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unselect the selections |
click Unselect All. |
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unselect the threads and messages that have been selected and select the threads and messages that have not been selected |
click Invert. |
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mark messages as read |
select the threads and messages. Then click Read. |
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mark messages as unread |
select the threads and messages. Then click Unread. |
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view multiple threads or messages |
select the threads and messages. Then click Collect. |
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lock a thread or message |
select the thread and messages. Then click Lock. |