Forums and messages

In forums such as Q&A forums, and general discussion forums, you can start a discussion topic, as well as respond to other people’s discussions.

To start a discussion topic:

1. Access the forum
2. Click the add discussion topic button. If you do not see the button, student posts have not been enabled.
3. Enter your post content in the text editor.
4. Click the post to forum button to submit your post.

After making a forum post, you have a 5-minute period to edit or delete your message, but only if no one has responded to your post in that time.

1. Click on the discussion link you want to respond to.
2. Click the reply link on the message you want to respond to.
3. Enter your message into the text field. You can click advanced to use a full text editor instead of the basic text field if you want more options.
4. Click the post to forum button to submit your reply.

You have a 5-minute period to edit or delete your reply, but only if no one has responded to your post at that time.

In some cases you are not able to reply to posts, such as the announcements forum, some special forum types, and when critical times have elapsed. In these cases the reply link will not be visible.

As long as no one has responded to your post yet, you can edit or delete your message within 5 minutes of posting. To edit or delete:

1. On the post you just submitted, click edit to make changes or delete to remove the post.
2. If editing, make the changes required, then click save changes. If deleting, click continue to confirm the removal of the post.

Once 5 minutes has passed since you made the post, then the edit and delete links will no longer be available.

Some forums are set up with optional subscription, which allows you to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the entire forum, and individual discussion threads.

• To subscribe/unsubscribe to all new posts in the forum, access the forum page and click the subscribe/unsubscribe option at the top of the page.
• To subscribe/unsubscribe to individual discussions click on the setting next to the name of the discussion thread on the forum page. It looks different depending on the type of forum, whether it is a general forum or an open forum.
  • For general forums, click on the subscribe toggle switch.
  • For open forums, click on the envelope icon.

Subscribe options for general forums:

Subscribe options for open forums:

Subscribing to individual discussions means that you will be notified about new posts in that particular discussion, but not in other discussions which you have not subscribed to. This can be helpful if there are only specific discussions you need to keep up to date with, or if there is a particular discussion which is not relevant to you which you wish to unsubscribe from.

If you do not see the option to subscribe or unsubscribe, the option to change that setting has been disabled. This is common for announcement forums, which contain important posts that everyone needs to read, so everyone is subscribed by default and cannot unsubscribe.

By default:

• You will receive a daily email with full posts for forums you are subscribed to.
• You will be auto-subscribed when you make a post to optional forums.
• New posts in forums will be highlighted when you view the forums.

You can change each of these default settings.

You can access and change your forum preferences from any page on Moodle by clicking the user menu in the top-right corner of Moodle, then clicking Preferences, and clicking on Forum preferences from the list.

The Email digest type preference allows you to choose to receive forum messages separately, or sent as one daily email digest which includes either the full posts or with subjects only.

The Forum auto-subscribe preference allows you to choose whether or not you would like to be auto-subscribed to forums when you make a post in them. This only applies to forums with optional subscription, and does not affect forums that have forced subscription such as the news/announcements forums which are used by lecturers to provide important updates for all students.

The Forum tracking preference allows you to choose whether to keep the default option in which new forum posts which you have not seen are highlighted, or opt out of this setting if you would prefer not to have posts tracked.

All forum posts are made using a browser-based text editor in Moodle.

There are different  text editors you can select from, which each have different text input, media, and formatting options.

Selecting an editor

The default text editor in Moodle is TinyMCE HTML editor.

To change to a different editor or check your current setting, click on the user menu in the top-right corner of Moodle from any page on Moodle, then click Preferences, and click on Editor preferences from the list. You will then see a drop-down box labelled text editor which you can use to change your preference.

This setting will affect the text editor you use on every Moodle unit, including editors which are part of the assignment upload form.

After selecting a differen editor from the drop-down box, click  the Save changes button.

The difference between editors

Each text editor has different options available to you for inputting and formatting text and other media. See below for more information.

The two editors are known as TinyMCE and Atto. You can choose between the two different text editors in the preference settings.

1. The default editor is TinyMCE. It works well for general purposes, but is limited if you need to type equations or formulae.
2. The alternative editor is Atto. It is better for equations and formulae. It also allows quick recording of audio and video.

There is also an option in the preferences to select plain text area, which is a text box without any formatting functions.

Refer to the diagrams below for instructions on how to use the TinyMCE and Atto editors.