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Discussion Board

The discussion board is a medium for written communication. Unlike email messages, messages posted to the discussion board are organized by topic and kept in a central location.

Accessing the Discussion Board

Viewing and Replying To Forums and Threads

Adding a New Discussion Topic(Thread) to a Forum

Reading Thread Attachments

 

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Accessing the Discussion Board

Please note that not all courses will contain a Discussion Board.

1. Login to Blackboard and choose the desired course.
2. In the course links, you will find a link labeled 'Discussions' or 'Discussion Board'; this may vary depending on how the instructor chose to label their links.

Viewing and Replying to Forums and threads

Please note that only the instructor can create new forums, but you may create threads within a forum. Please click here for detailed instructions for adding a thread.

1. After you have entered the Discussion board, you will find a list of forums. Click on the subject of the desired forum.
2. Once in the selected forum, you will see the threads posted by fellow students or possibly the instructor.
3. To view a thread posted, click on the subject of the thread you wish to see.
4. From there, you may Reply to the thread by clicking on Reply in either the top or bottom right hand corner.

Adding a New Discussion Topic (Thread) to a Forum

1. To create a new discussion topic within a forum, click the Create Thread button in the top left corner of the list of threads.
2. On this page, you will need to enter a subject; it is required.
3. Below the subject, you will enter the body of the message into the text box. You also have formatting options should you need to do something such as Bold, Italic, or Underline.
4. If you would like to attach a file to your message, click Browse My Computer under the second option, select the file you would like to add, and click Open to attach the file. Please note that filenames should not have any spaces or special characters, such as underscores(_).
5. Once you are finished composing your new thread, you may either 'Save Draft' or 'Submit'. Please note that the 'Save Draft' function works intermittently until the new update for Blackboard is implemented. *DoIT recommends typing the content for your thread in a text editor, such as Word, first so that you do not lose your data in the event of a connection failure or the 'Save Draft' option not working.

Reading Thread Attachments

1. If a thread has an attachment, you will see a paperclip next to the subject once inside of the 'Thread Detail Page'. Click the link for that message's subject line to open the message: clicking the paperclip won't work!
2. Below the original thread and its responses you can view the content of the thread; inside the message body there will be a link to open the attachment.
   • If you are using Mozilla Firefox to view Blackboard, you will be prompted to Open or Save the file. Select Open. If you have software that can open the file (e.g., Microsoft Word or PowerPoint), that software will launch and open the file.
   • If you are using Internet Explorer to view Blackboard, the file may either open within the Blackboard window, or you may be prompted to either Open or Save the file. If the latter is the case, select Open. If you have software that can open the file, that software will launch and open the file.

 

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Updated: Thursday, March 3, 2011

 

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