Forums In Moodle

The Announcements Forum

The Announcements forum is a special forum for class announcements that is automatically created when a course is created. A course can have only one (News &) Announcements forum and only teachers and administrators can post in the forum. Students are automatically subscribed (Forced) to this forum so any messages will be sent to their email and an archive of messages is also kept in the course throughout the semester.

Alternatively, if you want students to create posts, add an additional forum and give it an appropriate name. You will then be able to customize the 'subscription'  by editing the settings for the forum. Subscription indicates whether students have the option to opt out of receiving email notifications of when posts are made as shown below..

There are different Forum types to consider:

1. A single simple discussion
   • A single discussion topic which everyone can reply to (cannot be used with separate groups)
2. Each person posts one discussion
   • Each student can post exactly one new discussion topic, which everyone can then reply to
3. Q and A forum
   • Students must first post their perspectives before viewing other students' posts
4. Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format
   • An open forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time, and in which discussion topics are displayed on one page with "Discuss this topic" links
5. Standard forum for general use
   • An open forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time

To Add a Forum

• Turn Editing On
• Click on the  'Add an Activity' link.
• Select Forum or Advanced Forum. (The ?-buttons will help guide you.)
• You can select the desired options by editing the forum settings.