Settings, permissions, and restrictions in any part of the Discussion Forum work on a cascading basis. A selected option in a category affects every topic in that category. When you create a category, you have a number of options to choose from.
Category Name — The name of the category.
Category Description — Text you want to appear immediately under the category name on the main Discussion Forum view. This is useful for providing clarification or limited instructions about the purpose of the category.
Under Category Group — If you want the category to appear under a group heading in the Discussion Forum main view, select the category group here.
Hide Category Until — Entering a date here will completely hide this category and all of its contents from students until the selected date/time.
Note: The time selected via the date/time picker must be in one-hour increments. The only exception to this is 11:59 PM, which allows you to set something for the end of the day. Any other time will not be properly saved in the system if entered.
Options that apply to all topics in the category:
Topic Status — This option controls who can read or post in this category. Options include:
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Everyone can read and post. This option gives students the ability to read and post messages for every topic within the category.
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Only faculty, TA, and staff post. Everyone else can read but not post. Students will be able to read existing posts but will not be able to post any messages of their own. This option may be useful to end a discussion that pertained to an assignment that has ended.
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Only faculty, TA, and staff can read and post. No one else can read. Students will be able to see the topic header but will not be able to access the posts. Instead, they will see a message that the topic is locked.
Only faculty, TAs, and staff can start new topics in this category — If selected, students will not be able to start their own new topics in the category.
Make topics read-only on — Set a date and time in which the category becomes read-only, meaning that students can no longer post in the category after that time. This is useful for Discussion Forum assignments.
Note: The time selected via the date/time picker must be in one-hour increments. The only exception to this is 11:59 PM, which allows you to set something for the end of the day. Any other time will not be properly saved in the system if entered.
Students cannot view topics in this category until they add a topic — If enabled, students must create a topic in the category before they can see any topic or post in the category. This is useful in Discussion Forum assignments to prevent students from seeing other student work before creating their own topic for the assignment.
Students only have 15 minutes after they post a message in a topic to edit or delete that message — Selecting this option restricts students to editing or deleting their posts for only 15 minutes after they originally make a post. By default, the Discussion Forum allows students to edit and delete posts without any time restrictions. If you would like to limit the amount of time students have to edit and delete posts, select this option.
Link to Pages — You have the option to link any category in a course Discussion Forum to any Page Builder page in your course site. If this option is chosen, the Discussion Forum category and all topics in that category are displayed on the linked page. Select the page or pages in the Link to Pages section that you would like linked to the category.
Tip: Selected options will be represented by an icon or words for each category on the Admin and Discussion Forum Home pages. For example, if you select to limit topic creation to just faculty and TAs, you will see the icon in the title header for that specific category.