Discussion forums are the Moodle equivalent of the historical GSLIS bulletin board system. Like the bulletin boards, the discussion forums can be used to post announcements, share ideas, and continue in-class discussions outside of class time. While you will primarily participate in the forums through Moodle, it is also possible to subscribe to discussion forums and have posts come to you by email. For the time being, the discussion forums will only be used for Moodle classes; GSLIS community discussions will still take place on the GSLIS bulletin board system.
You can access the discussion forums two ways.
Click on the discussion forum icon 
or name on your class page.
Click on the discussion forum icon in the list of activities. You will then see a list of all the forums in your class.
Scroll down until you find the forum you need. Click on the forum icon or name. This view also lets you see if there are new/unread posts in any of your forums.
Once you have clicked on the discussion forum, you will have a number of options. You can:
When you first access the discussion forums, you will see discussion "threads" displayed with the most recently updated thread at the top. Moodle shows "threads" at the top level, with replies to the thread available after clicking on the top level message.
To view a message, click on the the message name under "Thread".
If there are other replies to the message, you can view them in a thread below the original message.
To reply to a message you've read, click on "Reply" in the lower right hand corner of the message.
In the upper left hand corner of your browser, you will see the original message. In the center of your browser, you will see a box in which you can compose your response. Depending on your browser, you may see something slightly different than the screendshot below. Some browsers, like Internet Explorer (PC), Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Camino (Mac) support a rich-text or WYSIWYG editor.
Using the rich-text editor, you will have access to a variety of options through the formatting palette located above the text box:
Many features will be familiar from other word processing programs like
Word. In addition to these features, you can also clean up Word-generated HTML
, check your spelling
,
switch to plain-text or code view
,
and expand to a full-screen editor
.
Other browsers, like Safari (Mac), do not support the rich-text or WYSIWYG editor. If you are using Safari, you will not see the rich text editor, and you won't have access to the formatting palette. We suggest using FireFox.
Once you have completed your message, you have a couple of options.
You can choose to subscribe to the forum. This means that every time someone posts to the forum, you will receive a copy in your email. By default you are NOT subscribed to most forums; however, if you wish to subscribe, select "Send me email copies of posts to this forum" from the drop-down menu.
You can add an attachment to your post. Click on "Browse", then find the file you wish to attach. Select the file, then click on "Open". The file location should automatically appear in the "Attachment" box.
When you are ready to post your message, click on "Post to forum".
After you post a message, the page will reload and display your message in the thread. You are able to edit your message after it is posted. You have 30 minutes to edit or delete the message before it is permanently posted.
If you wish to post a new message in a forum, click on "Add a new discussion topic."
After this step, follow the same instructions for posting a reply.
After you have posted a message, you have 30 minutes to edit or delete the message before it is permanently posted. To edit your message, click on the "Edit" button in the lower right hand corner of the message. To delete your message, click on the "Delete" button in the lower right hand corner of the message.
If you are editing your message, you will see the same screen you saw when you intially posted, along with your message in the text box. Make any changes, then click on "Post to forum".
If you are deleting your message, you will be asked to confirm that you want to delete the message.
The message will be displayed in the lower left hand corner. Click "yes" to confirm, or "no" to cancel.
There are two ways to subscribe to a forum. You can subscribe at the time of posting/replying, as described above. Select "Send me email copies of posts to this forum" from the drop down menu at the time you post, then click on "Post to forum".
You can also subscribe from the top level of the forum. When you first view the forum, you will see the forum description and any message threads. In the upper right hand corner of this page, you have a couple of options.
To subscribe, click on "Subscribe to this forum".
If you are already subscribed you will see an uption that says "Unsubscribe from this forum". Clicking on this link will unsubscribe you.
Moodle keeps track of whether or not you have read a post. This information will be displayed on your course page and in the individual forum.
New message notifications on your course page will look like this:
New message notifications in the forum will look like this:
If you are reading a message and new unread messages exist, you should see a button in the middle of the page allowing you to navigate to "More unread messages". Click on this button to go to the next unread message.
If you do not want to keep track of unread messages, click on "Do not track unread messages" from the main page of the forum.
You can also mark posts as read from the forum list:
To access this list, click on "Forums" in the Activities block, or click on
"Forums" in the breadcrumb trail while viewing an individual forum. If a forum
has unread messages, a checkmark
will appear in the fourth column. Clicking on this checkmark will mark all
posts in that thread as read.
