Forum
Forum is a Moodle activity that facilitates asynchronous (not in real time) communication and collaboration between you and your students and amongst each other. Educators can create discussion topics or allow students to generate topics, depending on the forum type selected. Forums can be used to make one-way announcements, set up structured or unstructured discussions for the whole class or small groups, or as an assessment tool.
Types of Moodle Forum
There are a range of different forum types to choose from that lend themselves to different discussion structures. Choose the type of forum that is most appropriate for how you want students to engage with the activity or assessment task.
- Announcements forum (previously called News forum): A specialised forum added to all Moodle units by default. Only lecturers and tutors can post to the announcements forum, all unit participants including staff and students will automatically receive email notifications. Students are not able to reply to posts in the announcements forum.
- A single simple discussion: Set up a single discussion topic which all your students can reply to.
- Each person posts one discussion: Allow each student to post only one new discussion topic, which everyone can then reply to.
- Q and A forum: Students must first post their response to a question or series of questions before viewing other students' posts.
- Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format: Allow anyone to start a new discussion at any time, in which discussion topics are displayed on one page with Discuss this topic links.
- Standard forum for general use: A forum with minimal restrictions, anyone can start a new discussion at any time and can comment on the discussions.
- Open Forum activity: An alternative Moodle forum activity that allows students to make anonymous posts.
Ways to use Moodle Forums
Here are some ways you can consider using forums (note this is not an exhaustive list):
Individual activities |
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Group discussions or activities |
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Feedback and/or support |
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One way communication |
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Assessments |
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Expand the accordions below to read about the benefits of using forums and view tips for using Moodle Forums in teaching.