Set up a Forum in Moodle

Overview

Forums are sites within an online course that facilitate two-way discussion between you and your students, and among your students.

There are two types of forum activity, forum and Open forum (previously referred to as Advanced forum).

In a course hidden to students, posting in forums with not send emails to the students but will still send emails to participants with access to the course such as instructors.
The private reply feature in forums is currently disabled for all roles. 

This page tells you how to set up a forum and how to assess students' participation in a forum.

When to use

A News forum is automatically created for each Moodle course, and displays at the top of the course home page. Place general news and announcements relating to the course in this forum.

You can also create 5 different types of discussion forum within your Moodle course—see Benefits and What kind of forum do you need? below.

To help you decide whether to use a blog, a wiki or a discussion forum, visit the page Blog, wiki or forum—which should you use?

Benefits

The 5 different types of discussion forum lend themselves to 5 discussion structures you can set up with your students:

Discussion types

  • A single simple discussion is useful for short, focused discussions. It allows for a single thread, which displays on a single page. If an instructor attempts to create further threads, when submitted these new posts will be hidden from view, although they will be listed on the course home page as unread posts. For a format allowing multiple threads, select one of the Standard options.
  • In a forum where Each person posts one discussion, each participant can only post one new discussion topic, although they can all reply to each others' topics. This is useful when you want each student to, say, reflect on the week's topic, and everyone else to respond to their reflections
  • In a Q and A Forum, a question is posed in the initial post of a discussion. Students must reply to this question with their own answer before other students' replies will be visible to them.
  • The Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format works like the Standard forum for general use, but displays differently. Only the first post of a new topic displays on the forum page (the most recent topic first, as in a blog); users click Discuss this topic on that post to view and join in the discussion.
  • In a Standard forum for general use, any participant can start a new topic at any time. All topics and their replies display at once, with the user's chosen layout (in nested form, if no layout is chosen).

For more information on the different options and their features, see the Step by step instructions section of this page, or visit the moodle.org Using Forum page.

Guide

Step by step instructions

Step by step instructions

 

What kind of forum do you need?

The 5 different types of discussion forum are listed in the Forum type drop-down list on the Adding a new Forum page:

Discussion types

The following table will help you decide which type of forum suits your students' learning needs.

Forum type Suitable for... Constraints Sample use
A single simple discussion a short focused discussion of a single topic

Students can reply to the posted topic, or to another student’s response, but they cannot start a new topic of discussion. If an instructor attempts to create a further threads, when submitted this new post will be hidden from view, although it will be listed on the course home page as an unread post. For a format allowing multiple threads, select one of the Standard options.

If you set up a single simple discussion, you cannot use separate groups within it; all members of all groups will see all posts. We suggest you use a standard forum, copying and pasting the same discussion topic for each separate group. If you need to, you can set a permissions override to prevent students from starting new discussions.

 Set up a single simple discussion for each topic on the course home page, to facilitate the discussion of the week's topic.
Each person posts one discussion a forum that's not as free as a standard discussion, but not as controlled as a single simple discussion Each participant can only post one new discussion topic, but can all reply to each others' topics, as many times as they like.

An introductions forum on the course home page where external students post an introduction and view other students’ introductions.

Each student posts a reflection on the week's topic, to which everyone else responds.
Q and A forum when you have a question and you want all students to contribute to answering it Students are required to post a response to a question before they can view other responses. After their initial posting, students can view and respond to others' postings. Facilitate a group activity during tutorial. Each group must post a response to the tutor's question before seeing other groups' responses.

Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format

 same as Standard forum for general use, but displayed differently. Only the first post of a topic displays on the forum page (the most recent topic first, as in a blog); users click Discuss this topic on that post to view and join in the discussion. Students can start their own discussion thread at any time and/or reply to other threads. Discussion of an assessment task, general questions about the course.
Standard forum for general use large discussions that you intend to monitor/guide, for social forums that are student led. All topics and their replies display at once, with the user's chosen layout (in nested form, if no layout is chosen). Students can start their own discussion thread at any time and/or reply to other threads. Discussion of an assessment task, general questions about the course.

With thanks to Macquarie University for permission to adapt their iLearn resources.

For more information on the different options and their features, visit the moodle.org Using Forum page.

Set up a forum

  1. On the Moodle course home page, in the relevant section, click Add an activity or resource, from the activity chooser select Forum.


     
  2. On the Adding a new Forum page, click Expand all, then in the General section:
    • Enter the Forum name.
    • Provide a Description.This should contain: the stimulus material to get your students posting (video, reading, scenario etc.), a description of the forum's task and purpose, your expectations about how much time they should devote to participating and, if the class is inexperienced in forum use, rules of netiquette and a link to their student guide.
If you expect students to contribute to the forum in video form, include instructions for uploading YouTube videos.
If you are copying text from a Microsoft Word document, follow the instructions on this page, "Copy text from Word to Moodle".
  1. Under Attachments and word count, select:
    • the Maximum attachment size for attachments to forum posts
    • the Maximum number of attachments that can be made to a single forum post
    • whether you want to Display word count of each forum post.


       
  2. Under Subscription and tracking:
    • Select the Subscription mode from the drop-down list:
      • With Optional subscription, users must go into the forum and choose to subscribe.
      • With Forced subscription, users are automatically subscribed and cannot unsubscribe themselves. You might want to use forced subscription for the News forum, or for forums you create at the beginning of the course, when users may not know that they can subscribe themselves.
      • With Auto subscription, all enrolled users are initially auto-subscribed for a short period, after which they can choose to unsubscribe
      • With Subscription disabled, subscription is not allowed.
    • At Read tracking, select whether you want to enable participants to track read and unread posts in the forum and in discussions. (Forum tracking must also be enabled in the user's profile settings.)


       
  3. Under RSS:
    • If you want to enable an RSS feed for this activity, select either Discussions or Posts to be included in the feed.
    • Select the Number of RSS recent articles (either discussions or posts) to include in the RSS feed. Between 5 and 20 is generally acceptable.


       
  4. Under Discussion locking and Post threshold for blocking, place any necessary limitations on forum posts:
    • Lock discussions after period of inactivity—Select a period of inactivity after which discussions cannot be posted to
    • Allow discussion postings within this range—Select a date range which users may post to the forum
    • Time period for blocking—Select a period within which users can be blocked from posting more than a given number of posts
    • Post threshold for blocking—Enter the number of times any individual may post before they are blocked from posting further.
    • Post threshold for warning—Enter the number of posts at which system will warn the user of the approaching threshold.

      In the example shown below, individuals are warned that they are approaching the threshold when they post 6 times in a week. Once they have posted 8 times in a week they are prevented from posting further.


       
  5. Make other selections as desired in the remaining page sections, and click Save and display.


     
  6. On the new forum’s home page, click Add a new discussion topic.


     
  7. On the "Your new discussion topic" page, click Advanced and enter a Subject and Message as text, audio or video. It's good to specify here whether students are to only reply to the topic you've posted, or are free to add new discussion topics themselves. Add any necessary links, images or text files. If you tick the Mail now check box, the announcement email will be sent to everyone who is subscribed to the forum, without the usual delay to allow for possible editing of your forum post. Selecting the Mail now check box will only result in subscribers being notified immediately if, in editing their student profile, under Email digest type, they have selected No digest (single email per forum post). If they have selected Complete or Subjects, they will be notified of this forum post along with the remainder of their daily digest notifications.


     
  8. Click Post to forum.

Set up access to all forums and allow users to choose individual forum digest settings

For easy access to the main forum page, where you can see all the forums listed and subscribe to or unsubscribe from forums, add an Activities block to your course home page.

Activities block selectionActivities block
Email digest type

Subscription toggle

The subscription toggle can be used to quickly subscribe and unsubscribe to forum discussions.

To access the subscription toggle:

  1. Open the main forum page.
  2. Click the sliders on the right hand side of your screen under 'Subscribe' to subscribe or unsubscribe to the forum discussions in the list.

Resource for students, about forum use

Resources for students can be found on the Student Website page Your Moodle Student Profile and Manage Forum Subscription

You might want to suggest to students that when posting to a forum, if they wish to submit a lengthy post they should compose it in Word, Notepad or a similar text program and copy and paste it into the Moodle text editing box. This removes the risk of the system timing out and deleting their work if they stop and think while writing.

If they copy from Word, before they paste into the Moodle text editor they should click the Paste From Word button Paste From Word icon, to retain most of the formatting of the original text.

View student participation

The forum summary report provides a summary of student participation in the forum.

To access the forum summary report:

 

  1. Open the forum in the course.
  2. Go to the 'Settings' block and click 'Forum summary report' or 'View posters'.

The Search Open Forums block

If you make use of the Open Forum (formerly Moodlerooms forum), you can add the Search Open Forums block to your course to allow students to search forum posts in the course.

To add the Search Open Forums block, locate the "Add a block" dropdown on the left-hand column of the screen, and select "Search open forums".

Add search open forums block

To use the Search Open Forums block:

  1. Scroll down to where the new block has been created
  2. Enter a search term, then press Enter
    Enter search term into search open forum block

You can then view the outcome of your search on the resulting page.

 

Export forum posts

To export forum posts to a readable format:

  1. Navigate to the settings block in your course.

  2. Under the 'Subscription mode' tab, click 'Export'.

Note: forum posts can also be exported from 'The Summary report'.

 

 

View Anonymous users

Go to the advanced forum activity you want to view anonymous posters for and follow these steps:

1. Within "settings" click the "logs" button.

Click the logs

2. Create a filter like the one below, specifying activity logs for the advanced forum.
Specify logs for the forum you want logs for
 

3. Find the post you are looking for, these logs will show you who the posted the article or comment.
  View logs of anonymous students

Marking a post as read

Staff and students can set their "Automatically mark forum posts as read" in their personal Moodle preferences to 'Yes' or 'No'. 

  • If yes, just visiting a discussion thread in a forum activity will mark each visible post as being read automatically. As it occurs automatically, the button to mark a post as being read is not visible.
  •  
  • If no, visiting a discussion thread in a forum activity will have no effect on the read status for each visible post. As a user needs to complete this manually, the button to mark a post as being read is available.

 

Whole forum grading

Instructors can grade students within forums using the "Whole forum grading feature". This method of marking functions similarly to the regular 'Moodle Assignment' activity.

To enable grading:

Whole forum grading section with mouse selecting 'Type'

  1. In your course, edit the forum activity.
  2. Go to the 'Whole forum grading' section and set 'Type' to 'Point'.
  3. Click save.

To grade forums:

Mouse clicking 'Grade users'. Followed by grading screen with students posts listed on the left and marking area on the right

  1. Navigate to the forum activity in your course.
  2. Next to 'Add a new discussion topic', click 'Grade users'.
  3. Fill in the grading menu including the 'Grade' text input field and the notification settings.

 

Advanced guide

Additional information

External resources

This YouTube video, "Moodle Orientation—Discussion Forums", is recommended, especially for students who are new to online learning. It demonstrates how to use discussion forums, and how to post appropriately to them. You might like to distribute this link to your students before you begin any work in forums.

Further assistance

If you experience technical or other issues, consult the Where to get help page.