Blackboard: Discussion Boards

Introduction 

A discussion board in Blackboard is a great way to build community and continue the learning process either between face-to-face sessions or in the case of an emergency. A discussion has two components: Forum and Thread. The Forum is the topic of the discussion and the Thread is the student (and instructor) responses. This page will step you through the process of creating a discussion board in Blackboard. Depending on how you like to learn, we have provided a Video tutorial, Quick Steps or Detailed Step-by-Step instructions.

Video 

Quick Steps

Create a forum

Control Panel > Course Tools > Discussion Board > Create Forum

• 1. Select the discussion board where you want to create a forum, and the Create Forum option appears.

  2. Type a name and optional instructions or a description. On the main discussion board page, the description appears after the forum name.

  3. Set the availability of the forum to No until you want the discussion to start.

  4. Select the Display After and Display Until checkboxes to enable the date and time restrictions when the forum appears.

  5. Select the Forum Settings based on your specific needs.

Finding a Discussion Board

Find the discussion board in two places:

• • On the course menu, select Discussions.

  • On the course menu, select Tools and then Discussion Board.

Responding to a Thread

• 1. Open a thread inside a forum.

  2. On the thread's page, you can view the text of the post and information, such as the author and posted date.

  3. Point to the post to see options such as Reply, Quote, Edit, Delete, and Email Author. The Quote option includes the post's text as part of your reply. 

  4. Select Reply. If you want to view only the unread posts in the thread, select Unread. The unread posts appear on one page.

Subscribing/Unsubscribing

• • Select the Forum you wish to subscribe to and click the Subscribe button 

Grading a Discussion

The grade settings appear on the Create Forum and the Edit Forum pages.

• 1. Select Grade Discussion Forum and type a point value to evaluate participants on performance throughout a forum.

  2. If you want to evaluate participants on performance in each thread, select Grade Threads.

  3. Optionally, select the check box for Show participants in needs grading status and select the number of posts required to show participants in needs grading status. This setting shows the Needs Grading icon in the Grade Center after each student makes the specified number of posts. The posts are also placed in the queue on the Needs Grading page. If you select a grading option and do NOT select the check box, the Needs Grading icon doesn't appear in the Grade Center and posts don't appear on the Needs Grading page. In the Grade Center, students' attempts will appear with the In Progress icon when they post.

Discussion Board for Attendance/Reflection

It is possible to set up a graded discussion board as a means of tracking student attendance and/or to foster reflection for live class meetings. One example would be to ask students, at or near the end of class, to go to a graded discussion forum that was set up for this purpose, with instructions to answer a certain question, post a short reflection, ask a question, tell about the "stickiest point" from the class, etc. By using the following settings, students would need to create a thread with their response, not seeing the responses of other students until after they have posted their own. This would also enable the instructor to quickly view, respond to and grade students, providing point(s) (either just as points, or using a rubric) for attendance, participation, etc...

• Set particular start/end times when students can access the discussion forum

• This sets it up so students must post before seeing other peoples' posts

• Make it graded - and tell how many points it is worth. If you use a rubric (e) this should match your rubric grade total.

• This will help you in grading the posts. When you go to "Needs Grading" you will see a collection of the posts and be able to grade them right there.

• You can add a rubric to facilitate grading with various levels of criteria/achievement.

Detailed Steps

Create a forum

Control Panel > Course Tools > Discussion Board > Create Forum

1. From the left navigation panel, in the Communication group, select Discussion Board.

2. The Discussion Board tool will open. Click Create Forum to create a new discussion board.

3. Type a name and optional instructions or a description. On the main discussion board page, the description appears after the forum name

4. Set the availability of the forum to No until you want the discussion to start.

5. Select the Display After and Display Until check boxes to enable the date and time restrictions when the forum appears.

6. Select the Forum Settings based on your specific needs.