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• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4


• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C

• Communication Tools
• Discussion Board
• Collaboration
• Collaboration Guidelines
• Digital Drop Box

Chapter 4

Discussion Board

We have already created a Discussion Board forum in the previous chapter, but there are some more advanced features of the Discussion Board instructors should know about.

Enter the Discussion Board by clicking on the appropriate link in the Course Tools area of the Control Panel, and then click on the "Introduce Yourself" forum we created in Chapter 3. Click the "Show Options" tab in the upper right corner of the Discussion Board screen, and you should see a row of buttons appear above the messages. These buttons allow you to better manage messages in the forum, particularly when your list of posts becomes very lengthy.

To read a message posted by a student, click on the subject of the message in the left hand column. The message will appear in the next screen with the student's name. The date and time the message was posted is automatically appended to the message. Students are unable to edit the information in the header of their message. To reply to that particular post, simply click the "Reply" button in the bottom right corner of the message screen. To return to the previous screen, click "OK."

If there are multiple posts in a Discussion Board forum, you may want to read all of the messages in a single glance or print them out for offline reading. This is done by collecting the messages you want to read.