Blackboard: Discussion Boards

Discussions are a way for students to interact with each other throughout the course asynchronously. These can be low or high-stakes and can be used to create meaningful discussions or a place for students to interact socially or speak more casually about the course content. 

Click on the "Discussions" tab in the left-hand nav bar. If your course does not have this you can request a blank course template or you will need to add it using the "Add Item Menu" at the top of the bar. 

Click on "Create Forum".

On the "Create Forum" page, name your discussion. You may want to type the question in the "Description" box on this page, depending on how you want to set up your discussion. This could also be a page for instructions only. Another way of adding a thread is shown below. 

In "Forum Availability" you can choose to use date restrictions. Leave the discussion to "Available". 

In "Forum Settings", set your preferred settings. Discussions can be a non-graded assignment. If this is checked, no grading column will be added to the Grade Center. If you select "Grade Discussion Forum", a grading column will be added. If you are using this for extra credit, set the points possible to "0". (See the article "Blackboard: Grade Center Basics for Faculty" for more information on extra credit columns in the Grade Center.) Set how many posts the participants need to make before you receive a "Needs Grading" alert. Setting a due date is optional. Adding a rubric is optional. For this example, a rubric has been set up for both the discussion post and the discussion responses. (For more information about rubrics, see the article "Blackboard: Rubrics".) 

The options in the image below are the default settings. Under "Allow members to subscribe to the forum", many instructors like to select "Include body of post in the email" because the post will be emailed to them instead of just receiving a link and needing to go back to Blackboard to view it. Some instructors want their students to go back into Blackboard to post more and will therefore select "Include link to post". Select your remaining preferred options and hit "Submit". 

The image below shows what the discussion will look like. 

Once in the forum, the students will have the options of "Create Thread" and "Subscribe". "Grade Discussion Forum" is in the instructor's view only. 

When someone has responded to the discussion prompt, it will look like this. 

Another way to set up your discussion boards is to provide general instructions on the page instead of the prompt as shown above. These instructions can be copied and pasted to every single forum and then new prompts created within the forum itself. 

Within the forum, you can create a new prompt by creating a new "Thread". To make sure students respond to this prompt by clicking "Reply", uncheck the box "Allow Members to Create New Threads" in the settings. This will prevent students from creating another thread. The image below shows a thread created by an instructor but this is also what it will look like when students start to respond if they create new threads. 

Some instructors don't want students to see how others have responded before submitting their own original post. To force students to create a post themselves before they can respond to others or read other posts, check off the "Participants must create a thread in order to view other threads in this forum" in the settings.