Create Discussion Forums in Moodle

Forums in Moodle give students a place to post their work so it's viewable by their fellow students. In addition to text, Forums support videos, presentation slides, images, and links.

TIP: Visit this page to learn more about getting started with Moodle Forums. 

Creating a forum in Moodle with the most commonly used settings

IMPORTANT: Forum posts show up immediately on the Moodle course. However, the original author has 30 minutes to edit or change their post. After the 30 minutes, the post is locked and can not be edited. 

1.) In your course, turn 'Editing' on and click 'Add an activity or resource'

2.) Select 'Forum' 

3.) Click the 'Expand all' link located in the top-right hand corner of your screen

• By clicking this button, you will be able to see all of the sections that are necessary to complete in order to add a Forum to your course.

4.) Complete the 'General' section

1. Give your forum a name.
2. Enter a description for your forum. This is a great place to put directions for your students.
3. If enabled, the description above will be displayed on the course page just below the link to the activity or resource.
4. There are 5 forum types:
   1. A single simple discussion - A single discussion topic which everyone can reply to (cannot be used with separate groups)
   2. Each person posts one discussion - Each student can post exactly one new discussion topic, which everyone can then reply to
   3. Q and A forum - Students must first post their perspectives before viewing other students' posts
   4. Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format - An open forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time, and in which discussion topics are displayed on one page with "Discuss this topic" links
   5. Standard forum for general use - An open forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time

5.) Complete the 'Attachments and word count' section

1. If students are going to have attachments with their forum posts, select the maximum attachment size.
2. This setting specifies the maximum number of files that can be attached to a forum post.
3. This setting specifies whether the word count of each post should be displayed or not.

6.) Complete the 'Common module settings' section

1. This setting has 3 options:
   1. No groups - There are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community
   2. Separate groups - Each group member can only see their own group, others are invisible
   3. Visible groups - Each group member works in their own group, but can also see other groups
2. If this checkbox is ticked, the activity (or resource) will only be available to students assigned to groups within the selected grouping.

• You can ignore all of the other sections within the forum; they are not important at this time.

7.) Click 'Save and return to course'

• You have now successfully created a group discussion forum!