Gauchospace Best Practices: Forums

Create private forums for you and each of your students. This allows students to create private diaries or journals that only you can read and/or grade. To do this you will need to put each of your students into their own grouping (Tip: name the grouping by the student’s name), and then in the common module setting select the grouping (i.e., student’s name) you would like to assign this forum to.

1. First, create a group for each student by following the instructions in the Creating a Group and Groupings help page.
2. Next, create a forum for each student:
   • Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
   • Click Turn editing on.
   • Select the week/section block in which you would like the forum, click Add an activity or resource, and select Forum.
   • Provide a name for your Forum.
   • Select the forum type from the drop down menu.
   • Go to Restrict Access and Add restriction...
     
   • Click to add restriction by Group.
     
   • Select the group you want to allow access to the forum.
     
   • Click Save and return to course at the bottom of the page. You should now see the private forum in your page.
     

Note: You can also restrict access using other profile information, such as ID number.

Use the Q&A forum to enable students to independently contemplate a question, and post to the forum without seeing other student responses. To begin, the instructor/TA will post a question and then the students will post their answers. Students will not see their classmates' answers until they post their own. After posting, students are able to view and interact with the rest of the classes’ responses. Responses will not be shown until a 15 minute delay has elapsed, giving the author time to make changes before they are public to the class.

1. Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
2. Click Turn editing on.
3. Select the week/section block in which you would like the forum, click Add an activity or resource, and select Forum.
4. Provide a name for your Forum.
5. Select the Q&A forum from the forum type drop down menu.
6. Click Save and return to course at the bottom of the page.
7. You can now enter your forum and add a question.
8. Students will not be able to see responses to the question until they post their own response.
   

Create a standard forum for general use where students can discuss a topic they are researching and talking about in class.

1. Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
2. Click Turn editing on.
3. Select the week/section block in which you would like the forum, click Add an activity or resource, and select Forum.
4. Provide a name for your Forum.
5. Select the standard forum for general use from the forum type drop down menu.
6. Click Save and return to course at the bottom of the page.

All students will be able to access and respond to this forum unless you restrict access (see Scenario 1 above).

Create a standard forum for general use where students can ask questions and interact with an outside expert. You can add your expert/guest as a course visitor whether they are have a UCSB netID or not. Then follow the steps in Scenario 3. 

Create an online space where you and your co-teachers/teaching assistants can communicate about the course privately and without cluttering your inbox. To do this you will need to create a grouping made up of only the instructors and TAs. Then, in the common module setting you can hide the forum and select your new instructor group as the group allowed to view this forum.

1. First, create a group for the instructors and TAs by following the instructions in the Creating a Group and Groupings help page.
2. Next, create a forum:
   • Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
   • Click Turn editing on.
   • Select the week/section block in which you would like the forum, click Add an activity or resource, and select Forum.
   • Provide a name for your Forum.
   • Select the forum type from the drop down menu.
   • Go to Restrict Access and Add restriction...
   • Click to add restriction by Group.

1. • Select the new instructor group you want to allow access to the forum.
   • Click Save and return to course at the bottom of the page.