Course discussions foster interaction among learners and between learners and the course team. You can set up different topics to guide these interactions when you create your course, and then run and moderate discussions throughout the course to encourage participation and develop course community. Discussions are also excellent sources of feedback and ideas for the future.
For information about participating in discussions, see the Participating in Course Discussions section in the EdX Learner’s Guide. Consider referring learners in your courses to that section, which describes the structure and features of edX course discussions, and provides useful information to help learners make the most of their participation in course discussions.
For information about running and moderating discussions, see the following sections.
Note
Some features of discussions, especially moderation features, are not available when discussions are accessed in the edX mobile app. For information about the differences between discussions on the edx.org site and in the mobile app, see Discussions in the edX Mobile App.
For information about how using cohorts in your course affects how your course team might moderate course discussions, see Managing Discussions in Courses with Learner Cohorts.
Learners and the course team use course discussions to share ideas, exchange views, consider different viewpoints, and ask questions. In course discussions there are three hierarchical levels of interaction.
The dialog created by a post, its responses, and the comments on those responses is sometimes called a thread. Discussion threads are saved as part of the course history.
All course team members and enrolled learners can add posts, responses, and comments, and they can also view posts, responses, and comments made by other course participants. For information about cohorts and how members of cohorts interact in course discussions, see Course-Wide Discussion Topics and Cohorts and see Content-Specific Discussion Topics and Cohorts.
Members of the course community, learners as well as the course team, can be given permission to moderate or administer course discussions through a set of discussion administration roles.
Note
The course team members that you set up in Studio or in the LMS are not automatically granted discussion administration roles. Only people who have a discussion administration role can view all of the discussion contributions, for example in courses using cohorts.
Discussion administration roles must be explicitly granted to members of the course team for them to moderate or administer course discussions. The course author, and any team members with the Admin role, can grant discussion administration roles. For information about assigning discussion privileges, see Assign Discussion Administration Roles.
Note
Not all options for moderating discussions are available when discussions are accessed using the edX mobile apps. For information about the differences between discussions on the edx.org site and in the mobile apps, see Discussions in the edX Mobile App.
Discussions in an edX course include both broad topics on course-wide areas of interest such as “Feedback”, “Troubleshooting”, or “Technical Help”, and the content-specific topics that you add to course units as discussion components. You create both types of discussion topics in Studio.
For more information about creating discussion topics, see Create Course-Wide Discussion Topics and Create Content-Specific Discussion Topics. For information about configuring discussion topics in courses that use cohorts, see Setting up Discussions in Courses with Cohorts.
All courses include a page named Discussion. When you create a course, a course-wide discussion topic named “General” is already included by default.
You can add additional course-wide discussion topics to guide how learners share and find information during your course. Such course-wide topics might include Introduction and Announcements, Feedback, or Troubleshooting. Discussions in these topics can begin as soon as your course is available.
Note
Make sure each discussion topic in your course has a unique name, whether it is a course-wide topic or a content-specific discussion topic that you add as a discussion component. If different discussion topics share the same name, learners might be confused as to which discussion topic they are participating in. For example, do not add a content-specific discussion topic named “General”, because a course-wide discussion topic named “General” already exists in every course.
To create a course-wide discussion topic, follow these steps.
Open your course in Studio.
Select Settings, then Advanced Settings.
Scroll down to the Discussion Topic Mapping policy key. By default, its value looks like this.
{
"General": {
"id": "course"
}
}
Copy the three lines provided for the General topic and paste
them above the closing brace character (}
).
{
"General": {
"id": "course"
}
"General": {
"id": "course"
}
}
Replace the second “General” with the quoted name of your new topic. For example, name the new topic “Questions about the Course”.
{
"General": {
"id": "course"
}
"Questions about the Course": {
"id": "course"
}
}
Change the value for the second “id” to a unique identifier. For example, append a reference to the name of the topic.
{
"General": {
"id": "course"
}
"Questions about the Course": {
"id": "course_q"
}
}
Note
In discussion topic IDs, you can use only alphanumeric characters and these special characters: underscore, hyphen, and period.
Add a comma after the first closing brace (},
).
{
"General": {
"id": "course"
},
"Questions about the Course": {
"id": "course_q"
}
}
Select Save Changes.
Studio checks the syntax of your entry and reformats your entry to add line feeds and indentation.
Scroll back to the Discussion Topic Mapping field to verify that your entry was saved as you expect. Entries that do not contain all of the required punctuation characters revert to the previous value when you save, and no warning is presented.
When learners select the Discussion page for your course, the drop-down Discussion list now includes the topic you added.
Note
In courses that use cohorts, the course-wide discussion topics that you add are unified. All posts can be read and responded to by every learner, regardless of the cohort that they belong to. You can optionally configure these topics to be divided by cohort. For more information, see Course-Wide Discussion Topics and Cohorts.
To create a content-specific discussion topic, you add a discussion component to a unit. Typically, you do this while you are designing and creating your course in Studio. Follow the instructions in Working with Discussion Components. The result is a discussion topic associated with a unit and its content.
Warning
Follow the recommended steps to add discussion components. Do not create discussion topics by using the Duplicate button in Studio, and do not reference the same discussion ID in more than one place in your course. Duplicated discussion components result in discussion topics that contain the same conversations, even if learners post in different discussion topics.
For information about the visibility of content-specific discussion topics, see Visibility of Discussion Topics.
Note
In courses with cohorts enabled, all content-specific discussion topics are divided by cohort when you first add them. Posts by learners to divided discussion topics can only be read and responded to by members of the same cohort and course team members who have a discussion administration role. You can change the configuration of content-specific discussion topics to make them unified and available to all learners in the course. For more information, see Content-Specific Discussion Topics and Cohorts.
You can designate a team of people to help you run course discussions. Team members who have a discussion administration role have additional options for working with posts, responses, and comments.
Important
The course team members that you set up in Studio or in the LMS are not automatically granted discussion administration roles.
Discussion administration roles must be explicitly granted to members of the course team for them to be able to moderate or administer course discussions. The course author and any team members who have the Admin role can grant discussion administration roles.
Different options for working with discussions are available through the following roles.
Note
The options for moderating discussions described below are only available when members of the discussion administration team work in a web browser. The edX mobile apps do not currently offer moderation options.
For more information about differences between discussions on the edx.org site and on the mobile apps, see Discussions in the edX Mobile App.
Discussion moderators can edit and delete messages at any level, review messages flagged for misuse, close and reopen posts, pin posts, and mark responses as correct answers.
Posts, responses, and comments made by moderators are marked with a Staff identifier. The moderator role is often given to course team members who already have the Staff role.
Discussion community teaching assistants (TAs) have the same options for working with discussions as moderators do.
Posts, responses, and comments made by community TAs are marked with a Community TA identifier. The community TA role is often given to learners.
Discussion admins have the same options for working with discussions as moderators, and their posts, responses, and comments have the same Staff identifiers.
This role can be reserved for assignment to course team members who have the Admin role only: the discussion admins can then both moderate discussions and give other users discussion management roles whenever necessary.
Before you can assign roles to your discussion team, you need their email addresses or usernames.
You can assign a course team role to any user who is already enrolled in your course. To assign a discussion administration role, you must be the course author or an Admin.
To remove a role from a user, you must be the course author or an Admin.
The names that you specify as the category and subcategory names for discussion components are not visible on the Discussion page in the LMS until after the course has started and the unit is released.
However, “seed” posts that you create in content-specific discussion topics before a course starts, or before the unit is released, are immediately visible on the Discussion page, even though the containing category or subcategory names are not visible. EdX recommends that you do not create posts in content-specific discussion topics before a unit is released. For more information about release dates and the visibility of components, see Controlling Content Visibility.
In contrast, course-wide discussion topics that you create on the Advanced Settings page in Studio, including the default “General” discussion topic, are immediately visible, regardless of whether the course has started. They are not associated with any particular section or subsection of the course, and are not subject to release dates.
On an ongoing basis, the members of your discussion team run the course discussion by making contributions, marking answers as correct, and guiding learner messages into pertinent threads. Techniques that you can use throughout your course to make discussions successful follow.
To identify certain types of messages and make them easier to find, you can define a set of standard tags to include in the subject of a post or in the body of a response or comment. Examples follow.
Both the discussion team and your learners can use tags like these to search the discussions more effectively.
When a post is created its type must be selected: either “question” or “discussion”. Members of the discussion team should be thoughtful when selecting the type for their posts, and encourage learners to do the same. For more information, see Find Questions and Discussions.
To help learners learn how to get the most out of course discussions, and find the best discussion topic to use for their questions and conversations, you can seed discussion topics in course-wide discussion topics before the course starts. Some examples follow.
EdX strongly recommends that you do not create seed posts in content-specific discussion topics before the course starts or before the containing unit is released. The category and subcategory names for content-specific discussion topics are subject to the release visibility of their containing unit, and are not visible until the unit is released. For more details, see Visibility of Discussion Topics.
To encourage longer, threaded discussions rather than many similar, separate posts, the discussion team can use the following techniques. However, be aware that long threads (with more than 200 responses and comments) can be difficult to read, and can therefore result in an unsatisfactory experience in the discussion.
Note
You can only pin or close posts and mark questions as answered when you work in a web browser. You cannot complete these activities when you work in the edX mobile app.
Pin a post. Pinning a post makes it appear at the top of the list of posts in the discussion navigation pane on the Discussion page. As a result, it is more likely that learners will see and respond to pinned posts. You can write your own post and then pin it, or pin a post by any author. Select the “More” icon and then Pin.
Mark a response as answered or endorsed. Depending on whether a post is a question or a discussion, you use the same option to mark a response either as the answer to the posted question, or to endorse a response. Marking a question as answered makes it easier for learners to find answers to already asked questions, rather than ask the same question again. Endorsing a response confirms that it adds value to a discussion.
To mark a response as answered or endorsed, select the “check mark” icon. You cannot mark your own responses as answers or as endorsed.
Vote for posts or responses. Learners can sort discussions by posts with the most votes, so posts and responses with many votes are more likely to be read and responded to. Select the “plus” icon for the response. You cannot vote for your own posts.
Close a post. You can respond to a redundant post by (optionally) pasting in a link to the post that you prefer learners to contribute to, and prevent further interaction by closing the post. Select the “More” icon and then Close.
Provide post/response/comment guidelines. You can post information from the overview in this section, or the anatomy of edX discussions in the next section, in a course-wide discussion topic (such as General) to provide guidance about when to start a new thread by adding a post, responding to an existing post, or commenting on a response.
The members of a course discussion team monitor discussions and keep them productive. They can also collect information, such as areas of particular confusion or interest, and relay it to the course team.
Developing and sustaining a positive discussion culture requires that sufficient moderator time is dedicated to reviewing and responding to discussions. Keeping up-to-date with a large MOOC forum requires a commitment of 5 or more hours per week, and involves reading threads, replying to and editing posts, and communicating with the rest of the discussion administration team and other members of the course team.
For information on setting up moderators for your course, see Assign Discussion Administration Roles.
To find out more about a specific discussion participant, you can view that learner’s edX profile from their linked username on discussion posts.
To access a learner’s profile from a discussion post that they contributed, follow these steps.
On the Discussion page, select a username in a post, response, or comment.
On the discussion page for that learner, select the linked username.
The learner’s account profile page opens. Learners can have either a limited profile or a full profile.
For more information about profiles, see Exploring Your Dashboard, Settings, and Profile.
You can develop a set of best practices for discussion participation and make them available to learners as a course handout file or on a defined page in your course. These guidelines can define your expectations and optionally introduce features of edX discussions.
You can also refer learners to the Participating in Course Discussions section in the EdX Learner’s Guide. Consider referring learners in your courses to that section, which describes the structure and features of edX course discussions, and provides useful information to help learners make the most of their participation in course discussions.
Discussion monitors can cultivate qualities in their own discussion interactions to make their influence positive and their time productive.
For a template that you can use to develop guidelines for your course moderators, see Guidance for Discussion Moderators.
When learners create posts, they specify the type of post to indicate whether they are asking for concrete information (a question) or starting an open-ended conversation (a discussion).
On the Discussion page, a question mark image identifies posts that ask questions, and a conversation bubble image identifies posts that start discussions. When an answer is provided and marked as correct for a question, a check or tick mark image replaces the question mark image. For more information, see Answer Questions and Mark Questions as Answered.
The titles and icons of posts that you have not yet read appear in blue, with a blue vertical bar on the post’s left side. Posts that you have read have dark gray titles and icons. When new responses and comments are made on posts that you have read, a “new” indicator displays with the number of new responses or comments that you have not yet read.
In addition to these visual cues, filters can help you find questions and discussions that need review. In the discussion navigation pane on the Discussion page, you can also select the following options from the Show all drop-down menu.
Discussion moderators, community TAs, and discussion admins can edit the content of posts, responses, and comments. Messages that include spoilers or solutions, or that contain inappropriate or off-topic material, should be edited quickly to remove text, images, or links.
Discussion moderators, community TAs, and discussion admins can delete the content of posts, responses, and comments. Posts that include spam or abusive language may need to be deleted, rather than edited.
Important
If a message is threatening or indicates serious harmful intent, contact campus security at your institution. Report the incident before taking any other action.
Learners have the option to report contributions that they find inappropriate. Moderators, community TAs, and admins can check for messages that have been flagged in this way and edit or delete them as needed.
For a learner who continues to misuse the course discussions, you can unenroll the learner from the course. For more information, see Unenroll Learners from a Course. If the enrollment period for the course is over, the learner cannot re-enroll.
You can close the discussions for your course so that learners cannot add messages. Course discussions can be closed temporarily, such as during an exam period, or permanently, such as when a course ends.
Note
You can only close discussions when you work in a web browser. You cannot close discussions when you work in an edX mobile app.
When you close the discussions for a course, all of the discussion topics in course units and all of the course-wide topics are affected.
Note
To make sure your learners understand why they cannot add to discussions, you can add the dates that discussions are closed to the Home page and post them to a General discussion.
To close course discussions, you supply a start date and time and an end date and time in Studio. You enter the values in the following format.
["YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM", "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM"]
where:
For example, to close course discussions temporarily for a final exam period in July, you enter these start and end dates.
["2016-07-22T08:00", "2016-07-25T18:00"]
To add a blackout date that closes course discussions permanently on 9 August 2016, you add these start and end dates.
["2016-07-22T08:00", "2016-07-25T18:00"], ["2016-08-09T00:00", "2099-08-09T00:00"]
You enter these values between an additional pair of square brackets which are supplied for you in Studio.
To define when discussions are closed to new contributions and when they reopen, follow these steps.
Open your course in Studio.
Select Settings, and then select Advanced Settings.
Locate the Discussion Blackout Dates field.
If the Discussion Blackout Dates field is empty, place your cursor
between the brackets ([ ])
.
If the field already contains one or more blackout dates, place your cursor
before the final bracket (])
.
Enter the start and end date for the time period during which you want discussions to be closed. Be sure to use the required date format specification.
To define the temporary blackout period in the example above, the field contains start and end dates in the following format.
[["2016-07-22T08:00", "2016-07-25T18:00"]]
To add the dates that close the discussions permanently, the field contains a second pair of start and end dates in the following format.
[["2016-07-22T08:00", "2016-07-25T18:00"], ["2016-08-09T00:00", "2099-08-09T00:00"]]
Select Save Changes.
Studio checks the syntax of your entry and reformats your entry to add line feeds and indentation. A message lets you know whether your changes were saved successfully.
For examples of email messages that you can send to let learners know when the course discussions are closed (or open), see Example Messages to Learners.
Learners can participate in course discussions using the edX mobile app as they do on the edX site, but there are some differences in the actions that moderators can take in discussions using the mobile app. To perform moderation or administrative tasks for your course discussions, you need to work in a web browser.
The following actions are not supported on the edX mobile apps.
- Pinning posts
- Marking responses to question posts as answers
- Endorsing responses to discussion posts
- Closing posts