A great way of maintaining the social aspect of learning is to set up activities which require staff to collaborate and talk online. The forum module is an activity where learners and trainers can exchange ideas by posting comments. Forum posts can also be graded by the trainer or other learners.
(This video is taken from the Social tools course in the Totara Academy).
Creating a forum
To add a forum to your course page
- Click Turn editing on.
- Select Forum from the Add an activity/ resource menu.
- Customise the available settings.
- Click Save and display (or Save and return to course).
Forum settings
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Forum name | The name for the forum. Will be displayed on the course page. | - |
| Description | The description is optional but could be used to give instructions or guidance about how to use the forum. | - |
| Display description on course page | If enabled, the description above will be displayed on the course page just below the link to the forum. | - |
| Forum type | There are five forum types:
| - |
| Maximum attachment size | When learners attach files to their posts, you’ll want to limit the maximum size of their posts so you don’t use up all your server space. This is especially important if you are paying a commercial hosting company for your Totara site. | - |
| Maximum number of attachments | This setting specifies the maximum number of files that can be attached to a forum post. | - |
| Display word count | This setting specifies whether the word count of each post should be displayed or not. | - |
| Subscription mode | Subscriptions to forums provide notifications to the users of new posts to the subscribed forum or forum topic. The notifications will be delivered depending on the users messaging preferences. It is possible for the trainer to choose whether a subscription forum is optional or not. The four subscription mode options are:
The subscription mode and subscribe or unsubscribe links appear in Navigation > Forum administration when viewing the forum. Trainers can quickly change the mode via the Subscription mode options and view the current subscribers via the Show/edit current subscribers link. | Changing the subscription settings will only affect users who enrol to the course after the change is made it will not back-port and subscribe or unsubscribe existing course members. |
| Read tracking | Read tracking for a forum allows users to track both read and unread forum posts. There are three options for this setting:
| - |
| Lock discussions after period of inactivity | It is possible to lock a discussion after a certain period of inactivity. This can be configured in the settings when creating or editing the forum, although it is disabled by default (no locking will occur). Once a discussion is locked then only users with the right capabilities (such as Editing Trainers) can unlock the discussion by replying to the forum. Any users without the right permissions will simply be unable to reply to any posts in the locked forum after the set period of inactivity. | - |
| Time period for blocking | Allows you to block learners posting after a given number of posts in a given period, after a certain number of posts learners can be warned that they are close to the limit. | - |
| Post threshold for blocking | Sets the threshold for blocking. Setting block threshold to 0 disables blocking. If blocking is disabled, warnings are automatically disabled. | - |
| Post threshold for warning | Sets the threshold for warnings. Setting the warning threshold to 0 prevents learners being warned that they are near the limit. | None of these settings affect trainers posting. |
| Grade category | This setting controls the category in which this activity's grades are placed in the gradebook. | - |
| Grade to pass | This setting determines the minimum grade required to pass. The value is used in activity and course completion, as well as in the gradebook, where pass grades are highlighted in green and fail grades in red. | - |
| Roles with permission to rate | To submit ratings users require the /rating:rate capability and any module specific capabilities. Users assigned the following roles should be able to rate items. The list of roles may be amended via the permissions link in the administration block. | - |
| Ratings aggregate type | A score in the grade book for the learner’s submissions in the forum. The grade is set using the dropdown menu below this option. The aggregate type defines how ratings are combined to form the final grade in the gradebook.
| If No ratings is selected, then the activity will not appear in the gradebook. |
| Scale | Select the type of grading used for this activity. If scale is chosen, you can then choose the scale from the scale dropdown. If point is chosen, you can then enter the maximum grade available for this activity. | - |
| Restrict ratings to items with dates in this range |
| See Common module settings to learn more. |
| Activity completion | See Activity completion to learn more. | - |
| Restrict access | See Restrict access to learn more. | - |
| Tags | See Tags to learn more. | - |
Searching forums
All of the forums within a course are searchable and browsable. Performing a forum search can find useful information easily. All forums within the course are searched simultaneously.
The Search forums block can be added to your course page and enables you to quickly search for a particular word within a forum post.
For advanced searching, press the search button without typing anything in the words field, you will see a complete form that makes it easier to do advanced searches.
An advanced search enables you to refine your search in any/all of the following ways:
- These words can appear anywhere in the post: One or more words you type in here will be found in all the places in the post they appear.
- This exact phrase must appear in the post: The phrase you enter must appear exactly as you enter it.
- These words should not be included: Identifying words you don’t want can help narrow down the resulting list of messages.
- These words should appear as whole words: The search engine will return posts that contain your words as part of a larger word. For example, if searching for “cat”, posts with the word “catalog” will be returned. Selecting whole words will look for a space before and after the words you have entered.
- Posts must be newer/older than this: This narrows down the number of posts according to time limits.
- Choose which forums to search: This enables searching within one forum only.
- These words should be in the subject: If you know the subject line of the posts you want, you can limit your searches by the subject line.
- This name should match the author: If you only want posts from certain authors, enter their names here.
Forum posting
The default content of Subject is usually 'Re: <the name of the parent post>'. You can change it though.
When writing text in Totara there are several formats you can choose to produce your text, depending on your expertise and the type of browser you are using. Please refer to Formatting text for further information.
Sharing images through forums
When an image is attached as a file to a forum message, it is immediately displayed full size after the message (i.e. no need to click on an attachment). This an excellent way of sharing images without having to go through the process of uploading them as files and linking them from within web pages.
Images may be dragged and dropped into the box as well as uploading via the add link and the File picker.
Sharing sound and video through forums
If multimedia filters are enabled, a sound file (mp3) or accepted video file can be attached and it will be embedded into the forum post in an appropriate player. As with images in the previous section, multimedia files may be dragged and dropped from the desktop instead of uploaded via the File picker.
Pinned post
When adding a new post to a forum you can decide if you want it to be a Pinned post. This means it will be stuck at the top of the forum even after additional new posts are added. Pinning a post can be helpful if you want ensure an important post doesn't get lost down the list of new threads. You can only pin posts if you have editing rights within the course (e.g. Editing Trainer).
Post length
Extra long posts cause problems when doing a forum search and can be difficult to read on screen. Rather than creating a very long post, consider copying and pasting the text into a text file and add it as an attachment to your forum post.
Post editing time limit
There is a time limit for editing posts, usually 30 minutes. It is set by an administrator in Administration > Security > Site policies.
Mail now
A mail now checkbox is available for anyone with the capability to manage course activities, normally teachers and admins.
Checking the Mail now box results in a notification being sent immediately (i.e. when the cron next runs) to everyone subscribed to the forum, rather than after the post editing time limit.
For users who have enabled email digests in their profile, the notification is not sent separately from other forum post notifications.
Reply to posts via email
If enabled by an administrator (in Incoming mail configuration), you can reply to forum posts via email.
- Click the Reply by email link in the email.
- You will see a special unique email address to send your reply to.
Reply using the email address provided.
Make sure you remove the original email content so that your forum post does not contain the quoted text.
- You should receive an email saying your reply has been successfully posted.
- Your post now appears in the forum.
Moving between forum threads
Links top and bottom left and right (where applicable) take you to the previous and next forum discussion in a list.
If your forum has groups, you only need to post once and your post is copied for each group.
Adding and editing subscribers
You can manually add or remove people as subscribers to a forum in Totara Learn. Subscribers will get an email update (controlled by their digest settings) when a new post is made. To add a new subscriber, follow these steps:
- Select Show/edit current subscribers from the Forum administration block.
- Select Turn editing on.
- Search for the user(s) you want to add in the search field under the potential subscriber selection list.
- Choose the user(s) and select Add.
Archiving forums
When forum threads get very long, you may want to archive them and start up the conversation again with a good summary. Discussions can be archived one by one or by backing up the complete forum with user data, then restoring it.
To archive a discussion:
- Create a forum named 'Archive forum' on your course page.
- Go to the forum containing the discussions you want to archive.
- Enter the discussion by clicking on the discussion name. At the top-right corner of the screen, you’ll see a dropdown menu labelled Move this discussion to.
- Select Archive forum from the list.
- You’ll now see the discussion in the archive forum. Click the Forums link in the navigation bar and select the original forum from the list.
- Post a summary of the archived discussion in the original forum to restart the discussion.
Using an archive forum allows you to keep the discussions manageable, while retaining all of the detail of the original. It’s also an easy way to move good discussions from class to class or semester to semester.
Managing discussions is also easier with some help. A number of studies have reported the benefits of assigning groups of trainees to moderate duties for discussions around given topics. If a group of trainees knows that they are responsible for being able to discuss an issue intelligently with their classmates, they are much more likely to be sure they’ve done the reading and really understand the topic. They can be responsible for moving the conversation along, answering basic questions, and archiving and summarising a discussion.
To create learner moderator groups, assign a small team of learners to each forum or discussion. Be sure to enable ratings for everyone, in order to allow the learner group to use ratings.
Plugin settings
If you go to Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Forum you can configure the site wide settings.
Remember to click Save changes once you are finished.
| Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Choose the default display mode. Select from:
| - | |
Any post under the length set here (in characters not including HTML) is considered short. | Posts displayed on the site front page, social format course pages, or user profiles are shortened to a natural break somewhere between the Short post and Long post values. | |
Any post over the length set here (in characters not including HTML) is considered long. | Posts displayed on the site front page, social format course pages, or user profiles are shortened to a natural break somewhere between the Short post and Long post values. | |
Maximum number of discussions shown in a forum per page. | - | |
Default maximum size for all forum attachments on the site (subject to course limits and other local settings). | - | |
Default maximum number of attachments allowed per post. | - | |
The default setting for read tracking. There are three options for this setting:
| - | |
Enable (tick) this option if you want to track read/unread for each user by default. | - | |
Allows forums to be set to forced read tracking. Will result in decreased performance for some users, particularly on courses with many forums and posts. When off, any forums previously set to Forced are treated as optional. | - | |
The number of days old any post is considered read. | - | |
If enabled (ticked), the user must manually mark a post as read. Otherwise, when the post is viewed it is marked as read. | - | |
The hour of the day to clean old posts from the read table. | - | |
People who choose to have emails sent to them in digest form will be emailed the digest daily. This setting controls which time of day the daily mail will be sent (the next cron that runs after this hour will send it). | - | |
This switch will enable the possibility of RSS feeds for all forums. You will still need to turn feeds on manually in the settings for each forum. | - | |
If RSS feeds are enabled, sets the default activity type. | - | |
If RSS feeds are enabled, sets the default number of articles (either discussions or posts). | - | |
Enable (tick) if you want to allow setting of display periods when posting a new forum discussion. | - |
Forum preferences
User's can individually configure their own forum preferences, including digest type and forum tracking.
- Go to the Preferences page from the user menu.
- In the User account section click on the Forum preferences link.
- Configure the preferences.
- Click Save changes.
Preferences settings
Within forum preferences you can configure the following settings.
Setting | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Email digest type | This setting determines how a user will receive any posts from forums to which they are subscribed, allowing them to receive messages individually or on a daily basis. The three digest options are:
| You can also choose a different setting for each forum if you wish |
| Forum auto-subscribe | This setting specifies whether a user will receive email copies of any posts that are added to forums in which they have previously posted. This can be manually overridden within a forum. | - |
| Forum tracking | Enabling forum tracking will highlight posts that have not yet been read (where allowed within the forum). | - |
| When sending forum post notifications | When you are notified of a forum post, you can choose whether this should mark the post as read for the purpose of forum tracking. | - |
The Totara Academy has a whole course dedicated to using Social tools in Totara Learn. Here you can learn more on how to use these tools, see best practice, and give it a go yourself.
