This feature provides a discussion forum for your course. It is better suited to a tutor-supported course.

We recommend that a forum should only be used in a tutor-supported course because it needs to be moderated. You will be responsible for moderating it and closing it when it is no longer required. You must not set up a forum if your course has no start or end date and is not going to be monitored regularly by someone.

Note that not all learners are comfortable or have the time to engage in social activities like forums or webinars, so this sort of activity should be considered carefully before including in the course.

To include a forum in your course you will need to have either the Course Manager or Teacher role. To gain these roles you would need to complete a data declaration form – please contact openlearncreate@open.ac.uk to request one.

To add a forum, switch editing on, go to your course’s homepage and click on the + Add an activity or resource button.

This will give you a screen full of options. Click on the Forum icon to open the New Forum page.

Enter the name for the poll and (if you require one) a short description of it in the Forum name and Forum description fields. If you want this description to appear on your course homepage just below the link to the poll, you can tick the Display description on main page tickbox.

There’s a variety of settings for creating a poll, each with a help icon that includes more information.

• Under Forum type you should keep the default ‘Standard forum for general use’ – the other options are irrelevant for most purposes.
• Forum introduction is where you can explain to the learners what the forum is for and how to use it.
  • It may also be a good place to mention the behaviour you expect from learners when they're using the forum. We have provided an example of forum rules that you can copy or adapt for your own use.
• Other options include setting whether learners should be emailed when the someone adds a post to the forum, maximum file size and moderator settings for reporting posts and moderator anonymity. 
• Tagging enables anyone posting in a forum to add tags to their posts.
• Ratings enables anyone posting in a forum to rate other posts; this can be converted into a Grade.
• Limit posts enables you to add dates where the forum is active or limit the number of posts a learner can make.
• Manage old discussions allows you to filter out discussions that are no longer being contributed to.
• You probably will not need to change the Common module settings unless you are using groups. Likewise you can ignore Restrict access unless you need to add a restriction: something that your learners need to do before the forum is available. This is not usual for a forum activity. 

Click on the Save and display button to view the forum. It will include various buttons for learners, including Start a new discussion or Mark all posts read, as well as some buttons that only the moderators can use, such as Show usage.