Communicate and collaborate with forums guide

The News forum appears by default to all Moodle modules.  A module can have only one News forum.

Key features

• Staff enrolled on the module can use this Forum type to to send messages to students on the module.
• Students cannot reply to News forum post so it allows for simple one-way communication with enrolled students on urgent module issues.
• The subscription mode for this Forum type is Forced subscription. This means that students will automatically receive an email notification of the post to their university email. 
  • Students can use a daily digest to reduce the number of Forum emails that they receive from Moodle. This means that you need to plan your News forum messages accordingly, and not rely on it for informing students of last minute changes to the module.
• The Latest news block can be used to display recent discussions from the News forum on the module page. 

Typically a News forum is added by default to all new modules. If your module does not have this forum, you can create one by adding a Latest news block.

1. Turn Edit mode on.
2. Open the Block drawer on the right-hand side of the page.
3. Select Add a block. An overlay window displays with all available blocks.
4. Select Latest news. The Latest news block will be added to the end of the block drawer.
5. The News forum will then display in the first section of your module.
6. The News forum can be moved to a different section if required.

If a News forum doesn't display after adding the Latest news block, edit the module settings.

1. Select Settings from the contextual navigation menu above the module name.
2. Scroll to the Appearance settings, make sure that the Number of news items setting is set to a value great than 0.
3. Scroll down the page and select Save and display.

You can remove the Latest news block if not required and the News forum will remain on the module.

1. Turn Edit mode on.
2. Select the three dots menu alongside the News forum.
3. Choose Hide.

To completely remove a News forum (including content) and to prevent it being automatically recreated you must:

1. Select Settings from the contextual navigation menu above the module name.
2. Scroll to the Appearance settings.
3. Change the Number of news items to 0.
4. Select Save and display.
5. Turn Edit mode on.
6. Select the three dots alongside the News forum.
7. Choose Delete from the menu that opens.
8. Remove the Latest news block if it is present.

1. Turn Edit mode on. 
2. Open the section where the content is located.
3. Open the three dots menu alongside the content.
4. Select Edit settings.
5. Make your changes and select Save and return to module.