The News Forum (Announcements) is an ungraded discussion forum present in every Moodle course. It's intended to be used as a way to share news, updates, or announcements with your students. Faculty who do not want to use the News Forum have discovered an interesting quirk about it: It comes back after you delete it.
It's not currently possible to delete the News Forum in any of your Moodle courses. This article outlines a workaround for permantently hiding it. The following steps need to be followed in this specific order.
1.) In the top-left side of the header, click the green pencil icon to turn editing on
2.) Next to the News Forum, click the red 'Edit' link (1) and click 'Delete' (2)
3.) Click 'Yes' to confirm that you want to delete the News Forum
- Click 'Yes' when Moodle asks if you are sure you want to delete it.
- Do not leave the course or refresh the page! If you do, the News Forum will come back.
4.) Click the gears icon to open the Course Management Panel
5.) Select "Edit Course Settings" in the Course Settings column
6.) On the 'Edit Course Settings' page, scroll down to 'Number of announcements'
- This option is located in the Appearance section.
7.) Change the value to '0'
8.) Scroll down and click the "Save and display" button
- The News Forum will now stay hidden until you change the 'News items to show' value back to 1 or more.
- This will also disable the Latest News block (seen on the right side of your course) for you and your students. The only exception to this is that you will see it when editing is turned on in your course.