Further Blackboard Tools: Discussion Boards

How to use a Discussion Board in Blackboard

The discussion board is a collaborative tool that can be used by your tutor in a Blackboard Course. Your tutor will inform you if they intend to use the discussion board in your course. A discussion board allows for threaded conversations, these can be split into forums based on topics so that discussions can take place for a topic in its ‘own’ forum.

In a discussion forum, a user may be able to create a new thread (new post which others can reply to so you have threaded conversations); read replies; and responds to other threads in a discussion.In your Blackboard module:

Select the discussion board by selecting the discussion board link, in the image below, this is the discussion board forum ‘Global Warming’.

Threads in a forum will be listed, along with the following details:

• date and time that the thread was created
• Thread’s Subject
• Author’s name (unless the Post has been made anonymously, note in this figure the author name has been ‘blurred for this help tutorial’, you would normally see this)
• Status of a Thread (usually Published; see Displaying Unpublished Threads below for details on other values in this field)
• Number of Messages within this thread that you have not yet read
• Total number of Messages in the Thread (starting at 1 for Threads that have not yet been replied to).

Please note: Replies and responses to threads can be read by clicking the parent thread’s subject line.