.png)
Brightspace Discussion Boards
Learn how to use and best utilize Brightspace discussion boards in your class!
Getting Started
Getting Started with Discussion Boards
Discussion boards are a useful classroom tool for students and instructors to interact in a virtual setting. You can set up discussions in your course by going to the navigation bar in your course and selecting "Discussions". From there, you can create your own discussion boards.
How to Create a Discussion Board
Creating Discussions For Your Courses
Once in the discussions page, to create a new discussion board, first you must select "New Forum." Once you create a forum, you can add specific discussion topics.
Once you are to the forum settings, you can customize your forum to your liking. You can fill in the title, description, and select any options that may be helpful to facilitate in your discussion.
For example, you can moderate the posts more closely or you can require users/students post first before they can respond and reply in a forum. Once you decide on your settings, you can select "Save and Close."
Once you create your forum, you can now begin making your topics. From the same start menu, select "New Topic." Select the form you just created.
Then, you will want to title your discussion board, customize the description, and select any options.
You can allow anonymous posts, make students respond first before they see other student's responses, or moderate the posts as they're submitted.
Group Discussion Boards
To officially post your topic, click the blue "Save and Close" button, and your topic will be available under your forum.
Once your new topic is posted, you can then view your forum and your new topic under discussions.
Student Responses
Once you decide on the details of your discussion board, you can add it to your forum, which will then "group" your new topics together. In this example, everything will be grouped under "Week 1."
To officially post your topic, click the blue "Save and Close" button, and your topic will be available under your forum.
To view student discussions and responses, click on the title of the topic under the forum. You will then see all the responses to your prompt/topic.
You will be able to see a count for unread, replies, and views for each post. By clicking on the student's title for their response, you can then see other responses to their individual post.
Grading Discussion Boards
If you would like to respond to as student to give them feedback as their instructor, you can click the "Reply to Thread" button, where you can type a response to engage with the student more personally.
When you first begin the process of creating a discussion board, it will automatically take you to the "Properties" section, which was outlined the "How to Create a Discussion Board" section.
To grade a discussion board, you will want to select the "Assessment" tab. Here, you can link your topic to a grade item in the grade center and assign it a point value. You can also add or create a rubric, and allow assessment of individual posts.
