I am working with middle school teachers who like the feature of the Q+A forum (students have to post an original thought before they can see their peers work). However many teachers and students get confused because they create the Q+A forum, put the single question in the description, and then students click "add a question" as a reply. This then means that the replies are all new questions and students can read each others. I know that I can go into role override and make it so students can't start new discussions on that forum, but I am not sure if my teachers can reach that level of proficiency.
Is it possible to have a Q+A forum that works like a single simple discussion where there is only one topic?
Or is it possible to have a Q+A forum where the default is students can't start a new discussion (add a question)?
P.S. My college professors were also confused by the title "Question and Answer" and created a Q+A forum for class questions (which meant that no one could see the answer to the prof's questions). That was an easy fix once they saw the mistake, but it is another usability issue I have seen with this format.
Thanks for any input.
Hi Colin,
this is a very interesting result about usability problem with this forum type.
An easy way to solve some of the problems can be a renaming of the forum type in your installation
Change Q+A-Forum to 'Hidden answer forum type' or something similar.
this is a very interesting result about usability problem with this forum type.
An easy way to solve some of the problems can be a renaming of the forum type in your installation
Change Q+A-Forum to 'Hidden answer forum type' or something similar.
How do I rename the forum type in my installation? Thanks for the tip.
You can modify names and such by editing the language strings from the front page admin menu: Site Administration -> Language -> Language editing -> Edit words or phrases.
See http://docs.moodle.org/en/admin/lang.
See http://docs.moodle.org/en/admin/lang.
Thanks a bunch. I will do that. I also created a tracker issue to make some of the options for forum more clear, unified, and to add features which are normally available only by going to Override Permissions. You can check it our here
http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-18216
http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-18216
You need to Override the permissions for the Student role so that Students are not permitted to create new posts, only respond to existing posts. Then, the Teacher or Non-Editing Teacher can post the Question for response and Students can only reply to the question. They will not see other student's replies until they post their own answer.
Thanks for posting the procedure Stephan. That is the way that I did it for the teacher.
I can set that up forums with those permissions one at a time. However, most teachers will never reach the level of skill to go to the Override permissions tab and so will continue to make Q+A forums that don't behave as expected.
My tracker issue is to see if these options could be moved from the Override tab to the Forum creation main page.
I can set that up forums with those permissions one at a time. However, most teachers will never reach the level of skill to go to the Override permissions tab and so will continue to make Q+A forums that don't behave as expected.
My tracker issue is to see if these options could be moved from the Override tab to the Forum creation main page.