Discussion forums are critical tools that help to foster conversation and increase interactivity in the online learning setting. Requiring students to participate in forums regularly will encourage them to interact with their classmates, participate in an open exchange of ideas and perspectives, and bolster critical thinking about lesson/course material. In C4EBridge can be restricted to be viewed by those with specific C4EBridge memberships.

To create a new forum, access ADMIN > FORUM > CREATE FORUM from the top navigation:

The Create New Forum screen will open, allowing you to create your new forum shell.

When creating forums, you will need to first create the forum shell, add this forum shell to your course (via the Edit Course Settings page), add it to your lesson page (via the Lesson Editor), then add your topic.

This multi-layered approach helps increase the customizablity of your course forums, allowing you to tailor your forums to meet your needs!

From the Create New Forum screen, you can:

• Adjust your screen options. You can use the Screen Options menu to tailor your display on the Create New Forum screen, choosing to hide/display specific boxes, select your preferred layout, or enable the full-height editor and distraction-free functionality:

  

• Enter a title for your forum.
• Enter a general description for your forum.

This is NOT your forum topic and is not visible to the students. It is simply to remind you what the forum is being used for.

• Adjust any forum attributes.

For more information on forum attributes, visit the Forum Settings section.

• Publish your forum once your changes are complete.

On the Create New Forum window, you can use the Forum Attributes pane to customize your forum settings:

The Forum Attributes pane has the following options:

• Type: Select from:
• Forum: Houses topics and can act as a parent of other forums.
• Category: Only houses forums, not topics. This is ideal for organizing your forums, allowing multiple forums to be associated with a single category.
• Status: Select from:
• Open: Allows users to add topics of their own within the forum.
• Closed: Prevents users from creating new topics or posting new replies. When a parent forum or category is closed, their child forums will also be closed.
• Visibility: Select from:
• Public: Allows anyone to see the forum.
• Private: Allows only registered users to see the forum.
• Hidden: Allows only admin or forum moderators to see the forum.
• Parent: If you’d like to make this forum a child to another forum and create a hierarchical structure, select the desired parent forum.
• Order: Adjust the ordering in which your forum will be displayed using sequential values.

Similarly, on the Create New Topic window, you can adjust your topic settings using the Topic Attributes pane:

The Topic Attributes pane has the following options:

• Type: Select from:
• Normal: Does not stick or pin the topic.
• Sticky: Pins the topic to the top of the forum.
• Super Sticky: Pins the topic to the top of ALL of your forums. This may be useful for general posting instructions you’d like your users to see across all forums.
• Status: Select from:
• Open: This is a normal topic, with no restrictions. Any users can reply to this topic.
• Closed: This topic does not accept any replies from users other than moderators.
• Spam: This will be marked as a spam topic.
• Trashed: Moves this topic to the Trash, so that you can permanently delete it.
• Pending: This is awaiting approval and is not yet published.

For more information on Forum Topics visit All Topics

When incorporating forums into your lessons in C4EBridge, you can easily restrict your forums to be viewed only by those with C4EBridge memberships!

From the Create New Forum window, locate the Membership Access pane. Toggle the RESTRICT THIS FORUM setting, then select one or more membership levels to restrict the forum to:

When visitors outside of this membership attempt to access the forum (or any topics within the forum), they will be redirected according to the restriction settings of the associated membership.

For more information on Memberships view the Create Membership article.

ADDING FORUM TO A LESSON PAGE

Once you have created and published your forum shell, you will need to add it to your lesson page. After it has been added to your lesson page, you can add your forum topic. This will require a two-step approach:

• Step 1: Add the forum shell to your course via the Edit Course Settings page. From the Edit Course Settings page, locate the Forums tab on the Course Options pane and use the SELECT FORUMS field to locate and select your newly-created forum shell:

  

  You can select multiple forums to be added to your course as needed. Once you have selected your forum(s), click UPDATE on the Publish panel to save your changes:

  

• Step 2: Add the forum to your lesson via the Lesson Editor. After you have added the forum shell to your course (in Step 1, above), locate the lesson you wish to add this forum to and access its Lesson Editor. Drag the COURSE FORUMS option from the Add Content menu:



As you drag, a blue guide will appear, marking spots where you can drop this page element:



This will add a container housing ALL of the forums you added in the Course settings to this lesson. Enter a title for the COURSE FORUMS container (i.e., Weekly Forums), then click SAVE:



All forums associated with this course will now be displayed and accessible to your users:



Next, click the recently created forum shell on this list and add your new topic title and text:



You can also add topic tags or adjust the Topic Type and Topic Status settings from this screen. Once your changes are complete, click SUBMIT. When users access this forum, they will be able to click your topic and reply to your post, OR post a new topic of their own: