Using Oncourse Forums, how do I create a new forum and topic?

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Creating a forum

Note: To complete these procedures, you must be assigned a role having the necessary permissions. To determine your role, follow the directions in Participant roles. To view a list of permissions associated with a given role, see Permissions, roles, and tools. For a basic understanding of roles and permissions, see Permissions and roles: Overview.

A default forum and topic is populated for each site. To create a new forum:

In your site's menubar, click Forums.
At the top, click New Forum. The Forum Settings screen will open.
In the "Forum Title" field, type your forum's title.
In the "Short Description" field, you can provide a brief description (limited to 255 characters) that will be displayed along with the title in the Forums area.
In the "Description" field, you can enter an in-depth description of your forum, and provide any associated information or resources.
Note: When you use Firefox 3 to save a page or tool item containing an empty WYSIWYG (rich text) field, the resulting item may behave as if it has empty content for that field. For example, a forum topic might have a Read Full Description link that leads to empty content, or you may see an icon allowing you to expand some text, but see no additional content when you do so. To remove the code causing this behavior, open the page (i.e., to edit the item's settings), click Source in the WYSIWYG toolbar, delete all content in the Source view, and re-save the page.
Under "Attachments", you can attach a file from your local computer or from Resources, or specify the address for a file on the web. For instructions, see Options for adding attachments.
To disable forum postings, under "Forum Posting", select Yes next to "Lock Topic (Disable forum postings)". No is selected by default, allowing site participants to post messages.
To moderate forum postings, under "Forum Posting", select Yes next to "Moderate Topics in Forum". No is selected by default, allowing site participants to post messages without moderation.
To automatically mark all messages in a thread as read at one time, under "Mark Threads Read", select Yes next to "Automatically Mark All Messages in a Thread as Read". With this setting, each time you open the first message in a thread, all messages within that thread are automatically marked as read. The default setting is No, which tracks read/unread status for each message individually. (With the default thread, you can also manually click Mark All as Read for a given thread.)
Under "Permissions", you can modify permission levels for participant roles (and groups, if you've created them; see Managing groups). To do so, from the drop-down list next to "This site role:", select a role (or group) for editing by clicking its name. Then, next to "gets this permission level:", use the drop-down list to select from several predefined permission levels. Additionally, you can create custom permission levels by clicking to enable or disable the following functions:
- New Forum: Create a new forum. You can modify this option only via Template Settings.
- New Topic: Create a new topic. You can modify this option only via Template Settings or Forum Settings.
- New Response: Create a new response to your topic.
- Response to Response: Send responses to a topic response.
- Post to Gradebook: Grade responses and add comments. Send grades and comments to Gradebook.
- Change Settings: Change the topic settings.
- Read: Read topic responses.
- Mark as Read: Mark messages as read.
- Moderate Postings: Moderate messages posted to forum (available if "Moderate Topics in Forum" option was selected above).
- Edit Postings: Use the radio buttons to indicate which postings participants with the permission level can revise (none, their own, or all postings).
- Delete Postings: Use the radio buttons to indicate which postings participants with the permission level can delete (none, their own, or all postings).
Note: Forum permission settings will apply to all subsequently created topics in that forum, but if you modify forum permission settings after topics have been created, you must change the topic permission settings separately.
Next to "Gradebook Item", use the drop-down list to choose an item with which the forum should be associated.
Note: To add an item to the Gradebook, see Adding, editing, or deleting a Gradebook item.
When you're finished, click one of the following:
- Save: Save your changes.
- Save Settings & Add Topic: Save your changes and add a topic to your forum.
- Save Draft: Save your forum as a draft. Forums saved as draft will not be available to site participants.
- Cancel: Cancel your changes.

Creating a topic

To add a topic while you're creating your forum, first finish creating the forum, and then click Save Settings & Add Topic.

To add a topic later (i.e., after you've created and saved your forum), on the Forums screen, to the right of your forum's title, click New Topic.

On the Topics Settings screen:

Next to "Topic Title", enter a title in the text box (required).
Next to "Short Description", you can provide a brief description (limited to 255 characters) that will display below the title.
Next to "Description", you can enter an in-depth description of your forum, and provide any associated information or resources.
Note: When you use Firefox 3 to save a page or tool item containing an empty WYSIWYG (rich text) field, the resulting item may behave as if it has empty content for that field. For example, a forum topic might have a Read Full Description link that leads to empty content, or you may see an icon allowing you to expand some text, but see no additional content when you do so. To remove the code causing this behavior, open the page (i.e., to edit the item's settings), click Source in the WYSIWYG toolbar, delete all content in the Source view, and re-save the page.
To add an attachment, under "Attachments", click Add Attachment. The file selector screen will open. See Options for adding attachments.
To disable topic postings, under "Topic Postings", click Yes next to "Lock Topic (Disable topic postings)". No is selected by default, allowing site participants to post messages.
To moderate topic postings, under "Topic Posting", click Yes next to "Moderate Topic". No is selected by default, allowing site participants to post messages without moderation.
To automatically mark all messages in a thread as read at one time, under "Mark Threads Read", select Yes next to "Automatically Mark All Messages in a Thread as Read". With this setting, each time you open the first message in a thread, all messages within that thread are automatically marked as read. The default setting is No, which tracks read/unread status for each message individually. (With the default thread, you can also manually click Mark All as Read for a given thread.)
Under "Permissions", you can modify permission levels for participant roles (and groups, if you've created them; see Managing groups). To do so, from the drop-down list next to "This site role:", select a role (or group) for editing by clicking its name. Then, next to "gets this permission level:", use the drop-down list to select from several predefined permission levels. Additionally, you can create custom permission levels by clicking to enable or disable the following functions:
- New Forum: Create a new forum. You can modify this option only via Template Settings.
- New Topic: Create a new topic. You can modify this option only via Template Settings or Forum Settings.
- New Response: Create a new response to your topic.
- Response to Response: Send responses to a topic response.
- Post to Gradebook: Grade responses and add comments. Send grades and comments to Gradebook.
- Change Settings: Change the topic settings.
- Read: Read topic responses.
- Mark as Read: Mark messages as read.
- Moderate Postings: Moderate messages posted to forum (available if "Moderate Topics in Forum" option was selected above).
- Edit Postings: Use the radio buttons to indicate which postings participants with the permission level can revise (none, their own, or all postings).
- Delete Postings: Use the radio buttons to indicate which postings participants with the permission level can delete (none, their own, or all postings).
Note: Forum permission settings will apply to all subsequently created topics in that forum, but if you modify forum permission settings after topics have been created, you must change the topic permission settings separately.
Next to "Gradebook Item", use the drop-down list to choose an item with which the topic should be associated.
Note: To add an item to the Gradebook, see Adding, editing, or deleting a Gradebook item.
When you're finished, click one of the following:
- Save: Save your changes, post the topic, and exit the Forum Settings screen. You'll see your newly posted topic within your forum on the Forums screen.
- Save Draft: Save your topic as a draft.
- Save Settings & Add Topic: Save your changes and add another topic to your forum.
- Cancel: Cancel your changes.