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Creating a Q&A Forum

Learn how to create a forum where students cannot see peer post before making an initial post

Updated over 6 months ago

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to provide step-by-step instructions for creating a Q & A forum in a Moodle course

Procedures

  1. Make sure Edit mode is on

    Button labeled Edit mode

  2. Click Add an activity

    Link labeled Add an activity or resource

  3. Select Forum

    Small tile labeled Forum

  4. Give your forum a title, type a description in the description box (optional), and check the box next to Display description on course page (optional)

    Text boxes for adding a title and a description or instructions with an unchecked checkbox underneath

  5. Select Q and A forum from the dropdown menu under the activity description box

    Dropdown menu with Q and A forum selected

  6. Enable due date and/or cut-off date in the Availability section

    Availability section with dates not enabled

  7. Change Display word count to Yes in the Attachments and word count section if you want your students to see if they have met any word count criterion

    Dropdown menu for Display word count set to yes

  8. Set either Whole forum grading to Scale or Point or set Ratings to Sum of ratings. Do not set both or you will end up with duplicate tabs in the gradebook

    Dropdown menu in Whole forum grading with Point highlighted
    Dropdown menu in Ratings section with Sum of ratings highlighted

  9. Set up completion tracking. If you select Show activity as complete when conditions are met, you can require a minimum number of replies

    Dropdown menu in Activity completion with Students can manually mark the activity as completed highlighted
    Settings with certain conditions checked such as Student must post 1 reply

  10. Save your settings

    Buttons labeled Save and return to course and Save and display

  11. Click Add a discussion topic to copy/paste your description question in as your topic question and click Post to forum at the bottom. Students will then click on your post to reply. They will not see other posts until they have posted something themselves

    Button labeled Add discussion topic

  12. This is what students will see…

from the course page…

Activity as displayed on course page

after clicking the forum assignment link…

The instructor's question as displayed to students

after clicking the question posted by the instructor…

Display once the instructor questions is clicked

after clicking Reply in order to respond….

Text box for typing in forum post

The student can click the Advanced option in the lower right corner to find the ribbon with icons for adding images and video, changing text size and color, et cetera. Once the students are finished writing, they must click the Post to forum button. They will have 30 minutes to edit their posts before they are permanent. Please make sure your students understand there is no Add a new discussion thread button like in forums they may have seen in other classes.

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