TABLE OF CONTENTS


The Forum activity allows students and teachers to exchange ideas by posting comments as part of a 'thread'. Files such as images and media maybe included in forum posts. The teacher can choose to grade and/or rate forum posts and it is also possible to give students permission to rate each other's posts.



Add a Forum to your Moodle Course

  1. When you're ready to add a forum to your Moodle Course, make sure you've turned on "Edit Mode" using the toggle switch in the upper right hand corner of the Moodle page.
  2. Go to the section of your course where you want to add a forum and click on "Add an Activity or Resource" to bring up the activity chooser.
  3. From the activity chooser, select "Forum".The Moodle activity chooser with "Forum" highlighted.
  4. Begin by giving your forum a name, and in the description area you can provide the instructions for your forum. Here you will provide an overview of what you want your students to discuss, as well as any guidelines, such as a word count or how many times you want the students to reply.The settings for adding a new forum with "Forum name" and "Description" highlighted.
  5. There are various forum types that you can choose from, and the most basic is "Standard Forum for General Use". Every Moodle course is given an announcements forum by default. Students cannot make posts in the announcements forum. Click on the question mark beside the drop-down menu to read descriptions of the different forum types.Forum type settings with the drop-down menu open and the question mark highlighted to show where to get more information.
  6. You may want to use the Availability options to set a due date for student participation in the forum.The forum availability settings


Grading Forums

  • The Whole Forum Grading section allows you to choose... 
    • how you want to grade the forum: scale or points. 
    • the number of maximum points
    • a grading method: Simple Direct Grading, a Checklist, a Marking Guide, or a Rubric. (Each of these options offers various advantages. To learn more about grading methods, see our tutorial on Advanced Grading Methods.) 
    • a category from your gradebookThe forum grading settings with special notations highlighting the type, grading method, and category boxes.
  • Once all the settings are complete, you can scroll to the bottom, and click save and return to course. 
  • To grade a forum, enter the forum you would like to grade and click "Grade Users". The forum page in Moodle with "Grade Users" highlighted.
  • The "Grade Users" button will take you to the grading interface, which will differ depending on the grading method you chose.


Please Note: Open LMS has announced that Open Forums will be discontinued some time in the future. At this time, Open Forums still function, but you do not have the ability to add new Open Forums. Open LMS will work to migrate data from open forums tool before it is removed from our Moodle site completely. As of early 2024, that date had not yet been announced. To avoid interruption please transition to ONLY using the Forum activity type when preparing for future courses.