The discussions tab in courses allows for faculty and students to interact with one another through discussion forums. Topics within these forums use rich text, allow for attachments and can also be turned into gradable assignments.
Creating New Discussion
Click 'New Discussion'.
Click on 'Choose Categories...'
Select a category from the available list or create a new one by typing into the field and clicking 'Add'.
Select who can see the the discussion being created.
Specify who can reply to the discussion when, and whether it should be gradable.
If you choose to make the discussion gradable, you can choose whether or not students see their own grades and specify the weight of the graded discussion.
Click on the 'back' button to return to the title and body of your announcement.
Enter the title and body of your post.
To notify everyone you have given access to view this discussion, check the box next to Notify everyone with view permission by email. An email will be sent to everyone in the course that can see the discussion that it has been created. The email will include a link directly to the discussion within Digication. Notifications are a great way to keep students informed that new material has been added to a course.
To add attachments to to a discussion click on the Choose Files button. A window will open where you can choose one or multiple files to attach.
As files are being uploaded you will see a progress percentage detailing how quickly a file is being added to the discussion. When complete it should read 100%. After all files have bee attached you can drag and drop them to the desired order.
Any file type can be attached, however, each file can be no more than 20MB.
Click "Save" at the bottom of the page to create the discussion and make it available within the course.
After the discussion has been created it will appear in the "Discussions" tab where users can click its title to view and reply.
Discussion Notifications
When a discussion is created, all users in the course will receive a Digication Notification letting them know that it is available (1). Users will also receive a notification each time a response is submitted to the discussion (2).
Viewing and Replying to Discussions
To reply to a discussion topic in a course type in a title and some text in the body (6).
You can choose who can view your reply - everyone, or just yourself and the original poster (7).
You can also attach files. Click the Choose Files button (8) and select one or more files from your computer. Wait for them to upload and they will be attached to your reply.
Searching and Sorting Discussions
Access the Search Discussions page through the left-side menu, under the View Discussions heading.
In this page, it's easy to find the discussion post you're looking for by easily searching by the author's name or email address (1), the title of the discussion topic or post (2), or the name or file type of an attachment within the topic or post (3).
Click on the title of the topic or post to view the contents (4).
Click on the author's name to view all posts created by that author within the course (5).
Reordering Discussions
To reorder the display of discussion topics in your course, first click the Change Display Order link (1) in the left-side menu.
Next, simply type the order number into the provided field at the right side of each discussion topic (2) and then click the Reorder button (3).
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