Discussions lets learners in your site interact and discuss openly in a forum.


Toggle Settings

As an administrator you have the ability to change how Discussions is used and made available. Go to Site Building under Admin Settings. Under the Social Features section there is a dropdown for Discussions with three choices. 

  • Discussions disabled
  • Only Administrators can create new discussion topics
  • Anyone can create new discussion topics (default)



Moderator Settings

As the administrator of the site, you have the ability to administer your Discussion area. On the overall Discussions page you have the ability to make some changes.

  • Pin topics: The pin icon lets you immediately pin discussions to the top of the topics listing. This can be helpful for announcements or to have topics appear immediately when your learners go to the Discussions page.
  • Hidden: You can mark topics as Hidden so it can't be viewed by anyone aside from administrators. As administrators you will have the ability to see all posts made in your site.



When you're viewing an individual topic you will have further administrator options, both for the entire topic and for individual replies.


Moderator Settings

  • Lock this discussion (prevent any further posting to it).
  • Hide the entire discussion topic (non-moderators will no longer be able to see it).
  • Pin this discussion to the top in the topics listing.

For individual replies you have a few options too:

  • Hide this post: The eye icon can be toggled to hide or unhide replies. If a reply is hidden there will be diagonal stripes through the reply.
  • Flag this post: If you would like other administrators to review a topic or reply you can flag it. This will send an email to any administrator in your site asking them to review the flagged content.



Resolving Flagged Topics or Replies

As an administrator you may have people in your site flag discussions for inappropriate content. When this happens you will be notified via email with details and instructions.



Clicking on the link will take you directly to the flagged discussion. To resolve it, click on the red flag icon. You will then be given details on it being flagged with two options:

  1. Hide post: The flag indicator will be removed and this post will be hidden from ordinary users. Site Administrators will be able to see it as well as unhide it.
  2. Unflag post: The flag indicator will be removed and users will continue to see this post.



If it was decided to Hide post then administrators will still see the post, but regular users will not be able to see it.



Administrators will get another notice letting them know that the flag has been resolved along with details.