The Discussion Board is an area where instructor and student comments are organized into an asynchronous conversation. Participants can post and reply to others' posts. Some faculty members provide discussion boards for student-driven help sessions, content generation and group collaboration. Students who are reluctant to speak in the classroom have been known to participate more in this setting.
Discussion boards can approximate the Socratic Method, allowing discovery through discussion. Although designed for text-based interaction, various media (image, video) and attached files can also be shared.
Conversations are organized within a topic forum as threads that contain a main posting and all corresponding replies. Discussion boards can be restricted to a particular date range or group of students. Evaluation tools in Blackboard allow you to monitor student participation. If desired, grades can be entered in the Grade Center.
For complete instructions on how to Create Discussions, visit the Blackboard Help Center pages. Watch a video about How to create Discussions or Discussion Analysis or How to Grade Discussions.
Discussions are an online forum about course concepts. Your instructor may expect you to create your own discussions and participate in existing ones. Your instructor can also grade your contributions.
Your instructor can also create a group discussion for you to discuss a topic with a group of your classmates.
If your instructor added due dates for graded discussions, you can open discussions from your Grades pages, the calendar, and the activity stream.
From a course, select the Discussions icon on your course's navigation bar. Select the discussion from the list that appears. Discussions can also appear alongside other course materials on the Course Content page.
Note: Discussions in the Ultra Course View don't use forums and threads.
Each time you open a discussion, new responses and replies appear with "New" to show any activity that's happened since your last visit.
Above the Participants list in the Author section, you can see who created the discussion.
Your instructor may require you to respond to a discussion before you can read other responses and replies. When you "post first," you aren't influenced by your classmates' responses. When you open this type of discussion, a message appears: Post a response to see discussion activity. You can't view the discussion activity yet. Responses and replies appear when you post a response.
The Participants list won't show the number of others' responses and replies until you post a response.
You can create discussions for your classmates to participate in. Your instructor can delete any discussions, responses, and replies.
If allowed by your instructor, you can create discussions for your classmates to participate in. Your instructor can delete any discussions, responses, and replies.
- In your course, select the Discussions icon on the navigation bar.
- Select the plus sign in the upper-right corner to open the menu. If the plus sign doesn't appear, you aren't allowed to create discussions.
- In the menu, select Add Discussion. Your discussion appears at the top of the list. Only your instructor can move it in the list or add it to a folder.
- On the New Discussion page, type a meaningful title. Choose your discussion title carefully. After you move your cursor off the title line, the discussion title saves. Only your instructor can edit the title.
- Get the discussion started with a question, idea, or response. You can use the options in the editor to format text, attach files, and embed multimedia. If you view the editor on a smaller screen, select the plus icon to view the menu of options. For example, select Insert/Edit Local Files—represented by the paper clip icon. Browse for a file from your computer. A status window appears to show the progress of the file upload.
- Note: To use your keyboard to jump to the editor toolbar, press ALT + F10. On a Mac, press Fn + ALT + F10. Use the arrow keys to select an option, such as a numbered list.
- Select Save.
On the main Discussions page, your discussion title appears with the label Created by student.
When course members open your discussion, you're listed as the author in the side panel.
You may edit or delete your own posts and may delete your own discussions if no one has responded.
When instructors go to the Discussions tab, they can edit all discussions in the course and choose if they want the discussion to appear on the content page or not. All discussions will be on this tab whether the instructor opts to have Discussions on the content page or not.
- Click on the Discussion Tab and open the discussion the you want to put on the content page.
- Then select the Settings button on the top right of the Discussion. This is the button that looks like a Cog or a Gear.
- The top checkbox will be “Display on Course Content Page” (view screenshot)
- Check the box and click save The discussion will appear in the Discussion tab AND be placed bottom of the content page. The Instructor can then go to the content page and drag/drop that discussion where they want it.
Click here for a video on How to Participate in Discussions in Blackboard.