3. Instruction

The forum type can be selected only after the Forum is added to the course. 

Adding and editing a Forum

  • With the editing turned on, in the section you wish to add your Forum, click the Add an activity or resource link (or, if not present, the Add an activity drop down menu ) and choose Forum.
  • This will take you to the Forum settings page titled Adding a new forum.

Naming and describing a Forum

The fields you see in the Forum Settings page are standard for every Forum and most of them are similar to other Moodle activities as well. The basic first fields to fill in are

  • Name - the text inserted in this field will appear on the Course home page and also in the Forum heading. If you have multiple Forums in your course, you will want to make names distinctive and meaningful to help students navigating the course.
  • Description - the text inserted in this field will appear
    1. In case of Standard forum for general use on the top if the Forum page. It is good practice to include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the forum and the rating and grading criteria that might be used in this forum. 
    2. In case of Single simple forum the description will replace a first post.

To see how the Description is displayed, see the screenshot in the Example section of this lesson.

Remember that the standard Text Editor will allow you to insert images or multimedia in the Description. Similarly to other activities, you may decide to have the Description appearing on the Course home page. To avoid taking too much space of the Course home page, you may prefer to keep the description concise. 

Selecting the Forum type

In the Forum settings page in the Forum type section you can select a Forum type from the drop down menu. You may change the settings at any time. Consider that changing the type of an active Forum may confuse participants, as the interface and functionality changes slightly. However, sometimes changing the forum format from more restricted (e.g. Questions and Answers) to open (Standard forum for general use) could be a part of an instructional strategy. In any case you need to inform participants about the modifications preferably in advance.