Help - Computer and Technical

Working with Forums

Forum discussions are a great way to have an online conversation. Here's how they work in the Member Center.

You have the following options:

  • Reading
  • Searching
  • Subscribing / following (on the forum level or a single discussion)
  • Replying to a discussion post, and
  • Starting a new discussion

Each forum can have discussions. Each discussion is made up of messages (an initial post and replies).

Forum Home Page

We have a typical forum home page below with some markings to help identify things:

  • Search - red arrow (upper right) - searches all forums in a course
  • Add a new discussion - purple arrow (middle left)
  • View a discussion - blue arrow (Discussion column)
  • Subscribe / unsubscribe - orange circles:
    • Settings / gear icon - whole forum
    • Envelope icon - just that discussion

forum overview page

The envelope icon "closes" when you are subscribed to a discussion and "opens" when you are not. (All of the icons above are "open.")

See How do I subscribe or unsubscribe from forums? for more subscription management tips.

Discussion Page

Below is a discussion page.

You can:

  • Navigate to different discussions (blue double arrow).
  • Subscribe and unsubscribe to the discussion (orange circle). 
  • add a reply by clicking the reply at the bottom of the initial post (red arrow). Note that all replies also have a reply link at the bottom of their messages so that you can insert your reply where it makes the most sense.

 

forum discusssion page