Create Brightspace Discussions

Discussions provide a space within Brightspace courses in which instructors and learners can interact in threaded, text-based conversations. Instructors can create a discussion forum and topic for learners to ask questions, discuss course materials, and collaborate on ideas for projects.

Access Discussions

To access Discussions, select Discussions on the Course Navbar.

Note: Discussions can also be created through Content by accessing a module and selecting Upload/Create. Select New Discussions from the drop-down menu.

View Add quicklink to a discussion topic for more information.

Create Discussion Forum through the Discussion Tool

Begin by creating a Forum to organize your Discussion Topics. On the Discussion page, under Discussion List, select New then select New Forum. Once a forum is created a topic must be created within it for students to be able to post threads. Creating a Topic is discussed later in this document.
Note: Students cannot post threads within Forums alone, a Discussion Topic must be added within a Forum to be able to post a thread.

Discussions page displaying New Forum and New Topic button.

On the New Forum page, under the Properties tab, enter a Title for the forum. Instructors can choose to have one forum for the entire course duration with multiple Discussion Topics within it or create a forum for each unit, week or specific course content. Select Create a new topic in this forum with the same title to automatically create the same named topic when saving the forum.

New Forum page displaying Properties tab.

Enter a Description of the forum. This should be a general description of the forum and not where questions should be placed for students to answer. Questions and prompts for students should be placed within the Discussion Topic.

Under Options, select additional settings for the Forum. Please note that any setting at the Forum level will override any settings in the Discussion Topic within the forum.

For example, if a Discussion Forum is hidden from users but the Discussion Topic is available within that same forum, both the forum AND the topic will be hidden from students. ODL LMS Support recommends setting specific restrictions within the Discussion Topic only.

Under the Restrictions tab, the forum can be hidden from users. Availability Dates can be set to restrict the entire forum and the topics within it. Please note that hiding a forum from users supersedes Availability dates and the forum will not be accessible to learners.

Release Conditions can be set for the forum and additional Group and Section Restrictions can be applied.

Release Condition settings for New Forum.

View Release Conditions for more information.

View Groups for more information.

Select Save and Close to complete the forum creation process. Select Save and Add Topic to be brought directly into the create topic settings for this forum.

Create a Discussion Topic

The Discussion Topic is where the discussion will take place within a forum. To create a topic once a forum is created, select the drop-down arrow to the right of the Forum Name and select Add Topic.

Discussion Forum action arrow displaying Add Topic selection.

On the New Topic page, enter a Topic Title. The associated Forum is displayed immediately under the Topic Title. If you want to move the topic into another forum, select Change Forum. By default, a discussion topic is not graded. Select the Ungraded box to set points and connect it to the Grade book.

Create New Topic page displaying Topic Title and Change Forum options.

"Grade Out of" box and Grade Book setting

In the Description box, enter the discussion prompts and instructions for the students. Use the Insert Stuff Button to add additional documents and media.

View Brightspace Editor

Availability Dates and Conditions Settings

Set a Start Date and an End Date for the discussion topic. The Start and End Date is the timeframe during which students can post a thread within the topic. If no Start and End Date is set, it will default to “Always Available”.

Once a Start and End Date is entered, the ability to restrict posting before or after that date appears below each date. Select Visible with access restricted to see further settings for either Start Date or End Date.

Visible with access restricted settings.

Additional availability restriction settings

Visible with access restricted – Learners will see the topic but cannot access it.
Visible with submission restricted – Learners will see the topic, be able to click into it and see previously posted threads but cannot submit any new threads.
Hidden – Learners will not be able to see the topic.
Add availability dates to Calendar – Learners will be able to see the Start and End Dates of the topic on their class calendar.

Release Conditions allow instructors the ability to set criteria for the release of a topic. For example, you can require a learner to submit a post to an Introduce Yourself topic before having access to any further topics on the Discussion page. Select Add Release Conditions. Select Create New or Add Existing if you have created previous criteria.

View Release Conditions for more information.

Under Group and Section Restrictions, instructors can restrict access to a topic by creating groups within Brightspace. Select Manage Restrictions to apply those restrictions. Please note that Groups must first be created within Brightspace to access this setting.

View Groups for more information.

Post and Completion Settings

The default Topic setting is Default Participation, which means that learners can see all threads from other learners before making a post of their own.

Additional settings:

Allow learners to hide their name from other learners – Allows learners to post anonymously to other learners while instructors can still identify who wrote each post.
Learners must start a thread before they can view or reply to other threads – Learners will not see other learners’ threads until they have posted within a topic themselves.
Posts must be approved before they display in a topic – This is moderation of posts. The default moderator would be the instructor unless otherwise assigned.

Evaluation and Feedback Settings

Under Evaluation and Feedback, instructors can attach Rubrics for grading.

If the topic is graded, instructors can Evaluate Posts by selecting Allow evaluation of individual posts, to set points per thread within the topic. If this setting is chosen, the Calculation Method must be set. Additionally, instructors can allow learners to rate the posts of other learners, based on a five-star scale. Post ratings appear in the upper right corner of each thread, if selected.

Access Calculation Method for more information.

Once all settings are entered, make sure that the topic is set to Visible so that students can see and access the topic. Select Save and Close to retain all changes.