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Managing Discussion Forum Categories and Groups

By default, every CoursePlus site has a category titled "General." You can add more categories or category groups to organize your discussion forum. Categories do not have to go into category groups, but if you have a lot of categories, you'll want to think about organizing them into category groups.

 

Categories

Categories are where individual topics and posts go. Categories can organize these individual topics and posts into thematic or administrative areas, like "Week 1" or "Reflection Assignment."

 

How to Add a Category to a Discussion Forum

  1. Click Discussion Forum under Communication Tools on the main Faculty Tools page.
  2. Click Admin at the top of any Discussion Forum page.
  3. Click Add New Category. If you click this button inside a category group, the new category will go inside that category group.
  4. Select the appropriate category options for the category.
  5. Click Create Category.

To edit a category, click the Edit link to the far right of the category listing. To delete a category, click the Delete link to the far right of the category listing and confirm deletion.

 

How to Reorder Categories

If there is more than one category, you can use the draggable handles to the left of each category to reorder them.

Screenshot of two categories with arrow pointing to draggable handle

 

Category Groups

Groups are a convenient method for organizing categories. For example, you may have six categories in which two of the categories pertain to assignments and the other three are related to LiveTalks. You can group those categories together forming two main groups. How you arrange category groups on the Admin page will appear exactly the same on the My Discussion Forum page and Discussion Forum Home page as headers.

 

How to Add a Category Group

  1. Click Discussion Forum under Communication Tools on the main Faculty Tools page.
  2. Click Admin at the top of any Discussion Forum page.
  3. Click Add New Category Group.
  4. The New Category Group overlay window will appear.
  5. Type a title into the Category Group Name field.
  6. Click Create Category Group.

To edit a category group, click the Edit Group button next to the appropriate category. To delete a category group, click the Delete Group button next to the appropriate category.

Note: If there are categories in a category group when you delete the category group, you're given the option to keep or delete the categories in the group. Select Keep if you want to keep the categories. After deletion of the group, the categories appear outside any category group, at the top of the page.

 

How to Reorder Category Groups

If there is more than one category group, the arrows Up and down arrows  to the right of the group title will become active. You can then move the groups of categories up or down.

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