Note: You are currently viewing documentation for Moodle 1.9. Up-to-date documentation for the latest stable version is available here: Forum module.

Talk:Forum module

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Groups in forums section needed

A section on how "groups" in forums works is needed. I am wondering why separate groups removes reply links for students. Also I am wondering how a teacher can edit the permissions of groups in forums.--Don Hinkelman 18:41, 17 April 2011 (WST)

I found this info from Martin's 2005 comment: "The rule for a forum in groups mode is: students can only reply to discussions started by people in their own group. Read that again. smile Any discussion that someone starts is marked as belonging to their group.

One exception is for an editing teacher who can look at different groups. In this case, the group id of any discussion they start is set to whatever group they are looking at at that time. Thus, a teacher can post "into" different groups to seed discussions.

A teacher can also post a single announcement-type discussion to ALL groups (what we call group zero), but in this case students can not reply to it. Why? Because then students from different groups will be mixed together in the same discussion, and this causes all sorts of visibility problems later on if the forum or groups should change" --Don Hinkelman 19:24, 17 April 2011 (WST)

Comments October 2010

This page needs some tender loving care. I still think it has a lot of great theory and practical examples of different things forums can do. Part of me says we need to imagine that someebody does not know what a forum is and start from there. Selling people on the idea of using a forum is not necessary. I am not a good or quick educational theory editor. I recognize that the theory provides examples for using a tool and this is an area of Moodle Documentation we should encourage. Thus I hope somebody will take up the cause. My comments below still seem appropriate --Chris collman 00:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Revision July 2008

Nobody will hurt my feelings if they want to re-work my edits that span most of the Forum pages. I tried not to get rid of information. Generally I reorganized it and at least gave it the appearance of dealing with 1.9. I think it needed the makeover. This lead page was especially difficult and I hope I treated it with respect.

Just so you know, my priority reader is the new (teacher) user, then a seasoned Moodle (teacher/admin) user and then PhD candidates looking for thesis citations (big grin). Developers have their own namespace in MoodleDocs so I don't worry about them much. Chris's theory says:

  • the overview/introduction in a page or header is important to a new user as are key term links to other pages.
  • The links and the headings are very important to a seasoned user trying to find something quickly.
  • Most new and seasoned users don't want theory to slow down their quest for getting answers to their software problem, they will come back to it (like I do).

My style points. The use of headings allows linking to that spot from other pages, so I am aware of potential links. I generally like images, usually centered as thumbs with captions, that the user can click on to expand. When possible all images come from demo.moodle.org or a clone. It is nice to identify tips or version information with bullets or in their own heading. And I appreciate instructional steps being numbered but not other things. General FAQs, Tips, Tricks, theory, long examples, and old version information belong just above "See also" and clearly separated from the basics. And one page does not have to contain all the information in the universe, just a summary and links to other pages that have more information.

The reason for all these pages is about the content. Since I only use forums on moodle.org (thus am a student user), I am not a content expert on making Forums work with students or on a site. On the other hand, I do understand the importance of quality control and vetting documentations with a live module. I have not shared these thoughts in a while and thought this was a good time and place to do it.

Have fun --Chris collman 12:45, 18 July 2008 (CDT)

Great work Chris - a big THANK YOU! :-) --Helen Foster 04:24, 20 July 2008 (CDT)