Teacher: Forums & Communication

Communication is key to online learning. Moodle provides different types of forums for different needs.

1. Announcements (The "News" Forum)

Every course comes with a special forum called Announcements automatically created at the top.

Direction: One-way. Only teachers can post here. Students can read, but cannot reply.
Subscription: Forced. All students receive an email copy of these posts automatically.
Use Case: "Class is cancelled today", "Exam grades are released", "Welcome to Week 1".
Warning: Do not delete this forum. If you delete it, you lose the ability to blast emails to the whole class.

If you want students to talk to you or each other, add a new Forum.

Choose the right "Forum type" in the settings:

Type	Behavior	Best For...
Standard forum for general use (Default)	Anyone can start a new topic. Anyone can reply.	Open discussions, social cafes, general Q&A.
Q and A forum	The teacher posts a question. Students must post their own reply before they can see other students' replies.	Assessment tasks where you don't want students copying each other.
A single simple discussion	A single topic/thread, right on the page. No "Add new topic" button.	Short, focused discussions (e.g., "Introduce yourself here").

This controls whether students get emails when someone posts.

Optional subscription: Students can choose to subscribe or unsubscribe (Recommended for general chatter).
Forced subscription: Everyone gets emails. They cannot opt-out.
Auto subscription: Everyone is subscribed initially, but they can opt-out if it gets too annoying.

You can grade participation!

In Forum settings, go to Whole forum grading.
Set Type to "Point".
When you view the discussion, you will see a "Grade" button next to student posts. This is great for "Participation Grade" requirements.