EdtechGuides: Moodle Forum and communications guide: Participate in Forum

Types of Forum

There are usually two types of forum on a module. The News Forum which typically displays at the top of the module. Standard Forums display alongside the learning content on your module.

News Forum

Most modules will usually have a News Forum. This forum is available for staff to post important messages about the module. Students enrolled on the module are automatically subscribed to this forum and will receive email notifications of these Forum posts to their City inbox. Students cannot respond to posts made in a News Forum.

Standard Forum

The Standard forum is used to facilitate discussion and collaboration. Your lecturer may also set up social forums that are student-led, such as student cafes.

In a Standard forum, both lecturers and students can start as many new topics (discussion threads) as required.

Other Forum Types

A single simple discussion

The simple forum is most useful for short/time-limited discussion on a single subject or topic. As its name suggests, there is one discussion topic, set by the Lecturer, and anyone can reply to it.

Each person posts one discussion

A single discussion topic per person allows students a little more freedom than a Single simple discussion forum, but not as much as a Standard Forum where each student can create as many topics as they want. Although students can only start one discussion topic, they can reply to as many posts as they like.

Question and Answer forum

The Question and Answer forum is used when the lecturer has a particular question that they want students to respond to. In this type of forum, the Lecturer post the question and students respond with possible answers. By default a Q&A forum requires students to post once before viewing other students' postings. After the initial posting, students can view and respond to others' postings.

Standard Forum in blog format

This forum displays in a blog format. This is 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.

Participate in a forum

Switch on spell checker on your browser to catch any spelling mistakes.
Select Add a new discussion topic to post a new message.
Add a Subject.
In the Message input box write your message. The Message box is an HTML editor which enables you to format your text and to add in links. Please note, if you take longer than 1 hour writing your post, Moodle will time you out and you will lose everything that you have already written.
If you want to add an Attachment to your message, click Advanced, or move to step 7. to send your message.
To add an Attachment, drag and drop your file(s) into the Attachment area or browse your computer to locate and add the required file(s).
Select Post to forum to send your message. Your post will display to students and staff on the module.

You will get 30 minutes to edit your post. After 30 minutes has elapsed you will not be able to edit your post and if subscription has been enabled your post will be emailed to those enrolled on the module.

Screencast: Forum posts

To open a Forum to post a message or to read messages already posted select the title of the Forum from the module homepage. Forums can also be accessed using the Module Dashboard.
Select the link to the Discussion name to read the discussion. Select reply to post your reply to the topic.
In the Message input box write your message. The Message box is an HTML editor which enables you to format your text and to add in links. Please note, if you take longer than 1 hour writing your post, Moodle will time you out and you will lose everything that you have already written
To add an Attachment, drag and drop your file(s) into the Attachment area or browse your computer to locate and add the required file(s).
When your reply is ready, select Post to forum.

The Display replies drop-down menu enables you to decide how you manage the replies to a topic. Select the option that you find helps you best manage replies. The option displaying in the image below is Display replies in nested form. This option indents replies making it easy to follow the progression of a discussion.

Nested display

You can place favourites by applying a Star to the discussion topic.

Navigate to the Forum page.
You can Star discussion topics in two ways:
- Select the three dots to the right of the topic and select Star this discussion.
- You can also Star a discussion topic by selecting the star to the right of the discussion topic name
This will bring the discussion topic to the top of the list and it will be marked with a coloured in star.

Your lecturer may set up a rating scale or a single option scale to enable you to identify messages that you 'like' or find useful.

Select the Forum from your module page.
Read through the posts and replies. If rating is available on Forum posts you will see a Rate menu on the bottom of the post. Select your rating from the Rate drop-down menu.

Rating menu open with options of bad, medium, bad

Forum Communication and Subscription Settings

Forums provide an area where students and teachers can communicate by posting comments. Subscription to a Forum means that you will receive email notifications of any posts made to a Moodle forum, to your City University email inbox, as well as being able to view it on your Moodle module. This is useful for keeping up to date with posts made within modules. Staff may subscribe you to forums in order to send out important messages about your course or to include you in module activities. You can choose which forums to subscribe to, You can also manage the notifications you get from forums through your Preferences settings. Further guidance in Communications settings and activities.

Individual Forum Subscription

You can manage your individual Forum subscriptions and Email digest type from the link to Forums on the Module Dashboard in each module. Please note; that if your lecturer has forced subscription you will not be able to change this preference.

General forums are those forums located in the General topic at the top of the module and Learning forums are located within the module sections.

Subscribe to a discussion

If your lecturer has enabled optional subscription (where you can choose to subscribe to Forum messages) you can choose to subscribe to a particular discussion topic rather that the entire Forum.

Select the link to the Forum from your module page.
To subscribe to a particular topic, select the circle to the far right of the post. This will send you emails when there are replied to a particular topic on the Forum. This is a useful feature for keeping up-to-date with discussions that are relevant and of interest to you.
If you are subscribed to a particular topic there is a slider on the far right of the Forum post. To unsubscribe, toggle the slider.

Subscription button is toggled on

This guidance outlines how to unsubscribe from Forums. We recommend that you unsubscribe from Forums when you are finished your programme of study so that you do not get any Forum messages from Moodle to your City email for life account.

You will need to change the Forum subscription for each module you are enrolled on. You should find that most of your taught modules don't have any activity once they are completed, but you might find it useful to unsubscribe from Programme or Central modules that you are enrolled on.

Please note: If the lecturer has forced subscription on a Forum you will not be able to change this preference.

Login to Moodle and select a module from the My Moodle page.
You can manage your Forum subscriptions by selecting Forums from the Module Dashboard.

Select forums from dashboard

From the Forums overview page, select the link Unsubscribe from all forums at the top right of the page. You will receive a confirmation message, select Continue.

Unsubscribe all forums selected

To unsubscribe from discussion topics, select Yes, and this will unsubscribe you from the Forum. Once selected, you will see a prompt for successfully unsubscribing from the discussion topic.

Under subscribed, the option Yes has been highlights

Complete this process for each module that you are enrolled on. You can use the My Modules menu on the top navigation bar to quickly navigate between modules.

Moodle Forum and communications guide