ARCHIVED: Comparison between CN Post and the Canvas Discussions tool

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Important:

Indiana University's contract with CourseNetworking (CN Post) ended on December 31, 2023, and the CN Post tool has been removed from Canvas. UITS recommends using InScribe 2.0 as a replacement for the social, peer-to-peer discussion aspects of CN Post. For a list of alternative ePortfolio platforms, see ePortfolio software options.

CourseNetworking provides lifelong access to ePortfolios you've already created; you can log into CN to access them. For issues accessing existing ePortfolios in CourseNetworking, contact help@coursenetworking.com.

Since the focus of CN Post (sometimes referred to as CourseNetworking) is communication with other students, instructors may wish to use it to replace the Discussions tool in Canvas, which offers a more traditional discussion forum. Instructors might also choose to use Canvas Discussions for formal course discussion, while encouraging students to expand their learning with informal conversations on CN Post. Following are some of the differences between the two tools. If you want to add or remove either tool in the course navigation, see How do I manage Course Navigation links?

For more about Discussions, see What are Discussions?

Function	CN Post	Canvas Discussions
Organization	Social media look and feel See post content right away Use hashtags to label and search content	Threaded discussion forum See topics first, then open content
Text entry	Simple text editor; must use LaTeX for mathematical formulas	HTML editor supports more layout options, special characters, and mathematical formulas
Attachments/multimedia	Attach files or images, embed YouTube videos, or include web links	Attach files, embed images or YouTube videos, or include web links
Post visibility settings	To this course To this course and my other courses To this course and Global Classmates To course groups To only me	Post to this course Hide for now (unpublish) Option: Users must post before seeing replies
Polls	Yes	No
Search	Search posts by keywords; advanced filters and sorting methods	Search discussion by keywords
Connecting with participants	Contact or connect to post and reflection creators directly from the post	No similar functionality
Incentive system	Anar (pomegranate) seeds awarded automatically for posting and replying	Instructors can set up graded discussions; see What are Discussions?

ARCHIVED: Comparison between CN Post and the Canvas Discussions tool

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