3.2.2 News Forum and one-way communication

1. Introduction

The News forum is a special forum for general announcements which is automatically created for each course. By default only teachers and administrators can post in this forum.

To allow students to post to a forum you need to create a standard forum.

2. Example

A News Forum is automatically created for each course and for the front page of the Moodle site. By default, it is placed in the top of the center section and only teachers and administrators may add posts or reply to posts. The default settings force every enrolled person to be subscribed to the News forum.

The Latest News block displays a specific number of recent discussions from the News forum.

As with any forum, emails can be sent to subscribed members of a News forum.

3. Instruction

News Forum Settings

As with any forum, emails can be sent to subscribed members of a News forum.

Changing the subject line of forum notifications

New feature in Moodle 2.7!

Normally when forum subscribers receive emails from forums, the subject line is of the form: Course short name + Subject of post:

The subject line can be changed - for example to: Course short name + Forum name + Subject by going to Site administration>Language>Language customisation and in forum.php changing the string postmailsubject to

{$a->courseshortname} {$a->forumname} {$a->subject}

.

Removing the news forum

The news forum may be removed from a course as follows:

1. Delete the news forum from the course homepage
2. In Course settings set "News items to show" to 0
3. Delete the Latest news block
4. Alternatively - hide the news forum

4. Practise

A News Forum is automatically produced when a new course is created. Go to your practice area and create a new course to see the News Forum.