A&S Learning Design & Technology Knowledge Base

How do I set up Discussions in my large enrollment course?

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Large courses can utilize Groups to organize Discussions activities. 

Groups are created automatically when section rosters are added to a course site. Additional groups can be created ad hoc. Groups are helpful in organization, grading, and class management.

Learn much more about the benefits of groups in this article and video from UVACollab Help.

1. Create your Collab site and add the Discussions tool.

We recommend you do not create Discussion TOPICS until section rosters are added to the site.

2. Add your TAs as Secondary Instructors.

Anyone with 'instructor' privileges in a course in SIS (most likely, your TAs and/or head TA) should be able to access the course's roster.

Learn how to add users to a site.

3. Ask TAs to add discussion section rosters to your Collab site.

Making your TA a secondary instructor on your site will allow them to import the roster (see step 2 above).  Importing the rosters will automatically create a unique 'group' associated with each roster. Learn how to add a roster to a site.

As needed, faculty can then change grading permissions for TAs. Learn more about adjusting permissions

4. Create one Discussion FORUM per topic of discussion (or per day).

We recommend you create a new Forum for each day, or for each time all students are expected to make new posts. This will help keep things organized throughout the semester. Learn how to create a Discussion Forum.

5. In each Forum, create a Topic, and duplicate it for all groups.

Add a Description, and adjust settings as needed (specifying dates, requiring users to post before reading, etc).

Under "Automatically create topics" be sure to select "Automatically create multiple topics for groups" and then select all of the groups for which you want to create this topic.

UVACollab : Sam 1 JTerm HOPE : Discussions - Google Chrome

Click Save. An instance of the topic will be created and assigned to each individual group.  

When students open the Discussions tool, they will only see the topic assigned to their group.

If you're using Lessons pages and would like to create direct links to your Discussion Topics for students to access, follow these instructions.

If you're using an interactive schedule, learn more about linking to Discussion Forums.

6. Publish your Forums

If you saved your Forums as Drafts, be sure to publish them in time for students to access and contribute to the discussion.

7. Watch a video covering these steps.

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