Discussion Forums

Discussion forums provide an online venue for learners and instructors to discuss courses, and to ask and answer questions. They can be made available for all users, or for a specific set of users. For example, you may wish to create a course-specific forum only for the learners and instructors enrolled in the course.    

Configure Discussion Forum Categories

Discussion forum categories organize your forums. You can specify a target audience for a forum category so that every forum assigned to it has the same target audience.

Create a Category

To create a discussion forum category

1. Go to Manage Center > Communicate > Community Manager > Discussion Forum Categories.
2. Click + Create New Category.
3. In the Name field enter the category name.
4. Click Save. 

Configure Category Permissions

On the Discussion Forums Categories page, locate the appropriate category. Click the action menu and select Permissions.

• Read-only allows the user to view the category and assign forums to the category.
• Unrestricted additionally allows the user to update, delete and set permissions for the category.

Configure the Category Target Audience

After creating a new forum category, you must configure its target audience. Selection criteria can include user group, organization, organization attribute, role or the standard user attributes. 

1. On the Discussion Forum Categories page, locate the appropriate category. Click the action menu and select Target Audience.
2. Select the values for the target audience. Options include:

3. Click Save.

Delete a Forum Category

On the Discussion Forums Categories page, locate the appropriate category. Click the action menu and select Delete.

Deleting a forum category de-assigns any forums that were assigned to it, therefore those forums will no longer be visible to the target audience that was defined for the deleted category. Deleting the category also deletes its target audience. The forums, themselves, are not deleted.

Be sure you have an appropriate forum category configured before you create a forum. The category determines which users can participate in, or view, the forum topics.

You must have at least read-only permission to a category in order to select it.

6. Select the forum type.

7. Click Save.

Configure Forum Permissions

On the Discussion Forums page, locate the appropriate forum. Click the action menu and select Permissions.

• Read-only allows the user to view the forum.
• Unrestricted additionally allows the user to update, delete and set permissions for the forum.

Delete a Forum

On the Discussion Forums page, locate the appropriate forum. Click the action menu and select Delete.

When you delete a discussion forum all of its topics and replies are deleted. If you want to preserve the topics and replies in a forum, but do not want other users to see them, you can assign the forum to a category with no target audience. You can also restrict administrator access by setting its permissions.