3.1.2 Subscription settings: Optional, Auto, Forced, Disabled

Every time you set up a forum you have to choose how participants will receive notification about new posts on the forum. By default, posts are sent via e-mail or they are visible in a pop-up window (it depends on the messaging settings) after 30 minutes after the user has finished writing a post. There is also an option to send notification to participants immediately after publishing the post. 

The are 4 subscription mode options:

• optional subscription - participants can choose whether they want to be subscribed to the forum or not at any time
• forced subscription - participants are subscribed to the forum and they cannot be unsubscribed
• auto subscription - initially participants are subscribed to the forum but they can choose to unsubscribe from it at any time
• disabled subscription - subscription is not allowed, posts can be read only via forum

While setting up a forum you should choose one of these subscription modes. First of all think how important might be posts on the forum for participants. If they can be important maybe you should choose forced subscription. This mode can be useful in news forum where you and other facilitator publish important news. But even then you can't be sure that notification will be sent to all participants because every user can change messaging setting in administration block.

On the other hand, when you want to set up a forum and you know that reading posts for all participants is not very important for learning process or other purposes, you can consider choosing optional or auto subscription or even disabled subscription.

It is possible to change subscription settings but the best practice is to think about settings before creating a forum. Every change can make students lost and confused.