Discussion Forum Home View

The Discussion Forum home view is the default start page when accessing the Discussion Forum tool. All of the topics in all of the categories are listed on this page. By having the Discussion Forum home page list all the categories and all the topics in those categories, you get an overview of all activities in the Discussion Forum in one place. You don't have to drill down into each category to get an overview of the activity in that category. This makes it easier to get to messages of interest fast, and to make navigating between categories, topics, and posts fast.

Restrictions on Discussion Forum Categories

The Discussion Forum home view gives you clear visual indicators of the activity within topics in the Discussion Forum. Categories or topics may have restrictions on them which limit student activity in that category or topic. An explanation of the restriction indicators are below:

Icon	Definition
	Only faculty, TA, and staff can read and post. Everyone else can read but not post.
	Only faculty, TA, and staff can read and post. No one else can read.
	Only specified users can see this category. This is a "private" category.
	Students cannot see any posts until they post in the topic.
	Only faculty, TAs, and staff can start new topics in this category.
	Students only have 15 minutes after they create a post in a topic to edit or delete that post.
	This topic is sticky (always appears at the top of the list of topics for the category)

 

How to Collapse/Expand Categories

By default, categories are expanded which allows you to easily view all topic information and go directly to the topic messages. You can hide the content of categories that you don't need to access to reduce scrolling and visual clutter by clicking the chevron next to the category you want to hide. If you decide later that you would like to have all categories expanded you can refresh the page or click the > chevron next to the category title to open the category up again. You can hide all topics in all categories at once by clicking and display all topics in all categories by clicking .