Not allowing students to create new topic

Not allowing students to create new topic

by Satish Talim -
Number of replies: 7
I have Moodle 1.8.2+ and have a Standard forum for general use. I have created say 5 topics where I want all my students to discuss and at the same time not allowing them to create any new topic in the forum. Is this possible? How?
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Satish Talim

Re: Not allowing students to create new topic

by John Isner -
Starting in Moodle 1.7, you must do this through the roles and capabilities system.

First, you must get your Administrator to do two things:
  • allow Teachers to override the Student role (Site administration -> Users -> Permissions -> Define roles -> Allow role overrides).
  • override the Teacher role, allowing Teacher to "Override permissions for others." If your administrator wants to do this for ALL teachers, he can do it in the System context (Site administration -> Users -> Permissions -> Manage roles), but is safer to do it in some lower-level context, preferably in just your course.
Now you must do this:
  • Override the Student role in this particular forum (Click the forum, then click the Update button, then click the Override roles tab and edit the Student role, changing the capability "Start discussions" from Allow to Prevent.
That's all there is to it smile
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to John Isner

Re: Not allowing students to create new topic

by Satish Talim -
Some problem. I did exactly what you suggested, today morning but in the afternoon a student started off a new topic? What did I do wrong?

Also, what's the difference between Prevent and Prohibit in the Override?
In reply to Satish Talim

Re: Not allowing students to create new topic

by Bruce Long -

I accomplish what you are talking about by using a Q and A forum and over-riding the roles as previously mentioned.

Bruce

In reply to Satish Talim

Re: Not allowing students to create new topic

by John Isner -
Please check to make sure Student has "Start discussions" set to prevent in this forum:
  • click the appropriate forum link on your main course page
  • press the "Update this forum" button
  • click the "Override permissions" tab
  • click Student
  • check that "Start new discussions" has a value of prevent
In this case, Prevent and Prohibit are equivalent, but you should use Prevent. Prohibit would only have meaning if there were contexts below this Forum. A Forum is a bottom-level context.
In reply to John Isner

Re: Not allowing students to create new topic

by P D -
I can't seem to get the Reply button to show up when I prevent students from creating new topics in a forum using separate groups (using 1.8.3). I override the student role to prevent new topics and even override to allow replies but nothing seems to work. Forum type doesn't seem to matter either. Anyone else experience this problem?
In reply to P D

Re: Not allowing students to create new topic

by John Isner -
Please start a new discussion, since this is a different case.