as_r7_3_Instructor

Keeping the Discussion Board Content Safe

Overview

Discussion Boards give Students the freedom to share their thoughts and opinions on class topics with other users. Occasionally, Students may introduce material to the Discussion Board that is inappropriate for the class discussion. Depending on the maturity and the sensitivity of the Students in the Course, it may be important to review Student posts for inappropriate content before sharing posts with the rest of the class.

Instructors can assign Discussion Board users to act as moderators. Moderators review posts before they are added to a thread and displayed to the class. The Moderator may be the Instructor or other responsible participants.

It is also possible to prevent an individual user from posting at all. Assigning a user the role of Blocked will prevent the user from accessing the Forum. Assigning an individual user the role of Reader will allow the user to view content in the Discussion Board but prevent the user from posting content.

Security Settings

The following settings are available when creating a Discussion Board to ensure that content is appropriate.

Setting	Description
Allow anonymous posts	If this feature is turned off users are identified by their username whenever they post a reply. Making members accountable for the content that they post is a deterrent for users that wish to post inappropriate content. Be careful when disabling this feature as there are instances where learning can benefit from anonymous posts, particularly when discussing sensitive topics If this feature is enabled, the Forum cannot be graded.
Allow authors to remove own posts and Allow author to modify own published posts	Members are deterred from posting inappropriate content if they do not have control of the content once it is posted.
Allow members to create new threads	Preventing members from starting threads helps focus their posts on the topic.
Force moderation of posts	Moderating posts requires that all posts are reviewed by a responsible party before the content is shared with the class.

Moderate a Forum

Set up a moderator on the Manage Forum Users page. Otherwise, the Forum manager must take responsibility for approving posts.

Follow these steps to moderate Forum posts.

Open the Forum.

Click Moderate Forum. The Moderate Forum button will only appear in the action bar if you have a Forum Role of Manager or Moderator.
The Moderation Queue will appear with a list of posts that are awaiting approval. The posts appear in chronological order. Those at the top have been in the queue for longer than those at the bottom.
Click Moderate for a post. The Moderate Post page will appear displaying the message.
Select Publish or Return. If returning the post, add a message to the author explaining why the post is being returned and some suggestions for modifying the post so it is appropriate for the discussion.
Click Submit. If the post is approved it will now be shown in the Forum. If the post is not approved, it will only appear to the author and the Moderator in the Forum. The post will be marked returned and the Moderator comments when returning the post will appear as a reply.

Prevent a User from Posting

There may be an instance where a user should not be allowed to post at all because of past history of inappropriate posts or if the user has not been participating in discussions throughout the term. Assign a user the Forum Role of Reader if the user is allowed to view the Forum but not add content. Assign a user the Forum Role of Blocked to prevent the user from accessing the Forum.