3.2.1 Set up Q & A type of Forum

The Q and A Forum type can be used for example to:

• raise curiosity to see replies of the others
• encourage participants to reply to very targeted questions with limited number of possible good responses
• have an individual assignment but share and discuss the results

Satellite Application Course - specific question with limited number of good answers

In the Satellite Application Course one of the activities is delivered via a forum. There is a very specific question that participants are asked to answer: 

"Imagine that your are asked to train a newcomer about detecting severe thunderstorms on the satellite images. What would you teach him/her? What are the most important features to look for which indicate a severe thunderstorm? Please reply to the post "The most important severe thunderstorm features" below."

In the past this activity was delivered through a Standard forum for general use, which allows everybody to reply multiple times and add new discussions too. Now this activity is held in a Q and A forum, so responses from other participants are revealed only after you submit a response. This change has been applied to encourage participation from everybody. Before many participants did not bother to reply because often the first two or three responses covered the list of important features. Thus for some participants replying seemed like copying the good responses of the others. Now participants reply individually and afterwards can compare their lists and adjust, or modify their answers if they get inspired by other responses.

Note that the Student view of the Q and A forum will display the following notification above the discussion thread: "This is a question and answer forum. In order to see other responses to these questions, you must first post your answer."

Train the Trainer Workshop - raise curiosity to see replies of the others

In the Train the Trainer course participants are asked to play a role of a facilitator and propose a solution for a few challenging teaching scenarios. 

In this case the number of good solutions is greater than in the previous example. Nevertheless the experience shows that many individual suggestions go in a similar directions. To encourage all participants to answer the challenge this forum is held in a Q and A forum. Thus only after posting the answer participants are able to see how others have reacted to that same scenario. The Q and A forum type inspires contributions. Often even if participants are asked to answer to at least one scenario, they reply to all of them. This is perhaps because the scenarios proposed are engaging but also because this gives access to replies of the others. Furthermore, participants continue discussing the scenario commenting on similarities and differences between recommended troubleshooting actions.

Lastly, it is important to remember that notifications from the Q and A forum, even if set to Automatic, will be sent only for a specific question and only to users, Student and Teacher, who contributed to that specific question.

Note that the Teacher view of the Q and A forum like on the screenshot above will allow Teachers to Add a new question as opposed to Add a new discussion present in other Forum types. By default Students are not allowed to add a new question and will not see that option.