3.1.1 Set forum type: Standard forum or Single simple discussion

This is the most commonly used forum as by default it comes with less restrictions than other forums. The Standard forum for general use is often set up for generic open class discussions or introductions. The reason for that is that everybody is allowed to start a new discussion, post as many replies as they want, and freely see the replies of the others.

In this forum type, students will see the introduction text in a separate space above the discussion field. The discussion field contains information such as the title of the discussion, its author, the number of replies and the date of the last post.

See how the Standard forum for general use looks like in the screenshot below.

Like in the example above you could use the Standard forum for general use to conduct an ice-breaker and ask participants to share a story about their best learning experiences. Or you could use this forum type to:

• At the beginning of the course ask participants to introduce themselves;
• Ask questions to technical support. Because this forum type allows Students and Teachers to see, reply and add new Discussions, it will be easy for users to support each other or see existing answers.
• Inquire about participants experience in a certain topic, for example ask about different tools and applications they use in their daily forecasting, or other, work. The open format of this forum will give visibility to all discussions and replies.

You will see in the Forum type setting another Standard forum called Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format. It has the same functionality as the Standard forum for general use but the display of the posts vary. Read more here: https://docs.moodle.org/27/en/Using_Forum#Standard_forum_displayed_in_blog-like_format