Brightspace Discussions have three levels: Forum, Topic, Thread.
- Forums are the encompassing structure to the rest of the discussion. Learners cannot create a forum or a topic. In the forum description provide a brief description sentence.
- A Topic. This is where you introduce the discussion and provide any necessary instructions.
- The thread / replies are where learners add / reply and discuss.
Additionally, you can have different kinds of discussions:
- Open Discussions allow all users in the course to share their thoughts and work in one common area where everyone can read and comment. All entries are posted to the same page to help promote collaboration among all course members. Instructors can decide if students can post openly or anonymously.
- Restricted Group Discussions allow groups of students to collaboratively post thoughts and comment on their group’s work Instructors can also use the group restrictions to isolate students to single-user groups where they can post privately between them and the instructor or TAs.
In each of these cases, users create threads, which are added to the Discussion topic. The entries can be published and edited later. When entries are added to the Discussion thread, they are added automatically to an index organized by date.
