Forum where students can post but not reply?

Forum where students can post but not reply?

by b k -
Number of replies: 6

Is there a forum type/setting where students can create as many posts as they like but only the teacher can reply? Or is there something other than a forum I should be using?

I realize this kind of goes against the Moodle philosophy, but this what I'm after.

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In reply to b k

Re: Forum where students can post but not reply?

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
I am puzzled. The "reply" is how students make posts. So it seems that you are asking "Is there a way that students can reply, but not reply?" So this doesn't go against Moodle's philosophy, it just does not make logical sense.
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Forum where students can post but not reply?

by b k -
Sorry, I may not be using the correct terms. When a standard forum is empty, someone has to make a post. I call that the post. When people hit "Reply" like you did to my question, I call that a reply.

What I want is a forum where students can make posts, but not reply to other student's posts. Only the teacher can reply. This is actually how a traditional classroom would work. Students raise their hands and the teacher answers, not other students.

Does that make sense? With the terms I am using, don't confuse posts (which start a thread) with replies (which are a reaction to the post). A forum can have lots of posts, as this forum we are in right now does.

Hope that helps clarify. This seems like something that would be a very standard feature, but then again I suppose everyone thinks that about what they want to do smile
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In reply to b k

Re: Forum where students can post but not reply?

by Jon Bolton -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
Yes - it’s similar to how the Announcements forum works but in reverse! That allows a teacher to make posts but no one can reply.

So with a slight tweaking of permissions, it should be possible to do what you want.

  1. Create a new “standard discussion” forum.
  2. In the administration settings, click “Permissions”.
  3. In the dropdown list for “Advanced role override“, choose your student role.
  4. In the filter box, type “reply” and you should 4 capabilities listed.
  5. Prohibit the “Reply to posts“ capability.
Students can already start a discussion by default, and teachers can reply to posts by default, so that one override should do what you want.

If that works and you want to have that behaviour in all of your forums, you’ll need to make the change to your default student role.


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In reply to Jon Bolton

Re: Forum where students can post but not reply?

by b k -
Thanks for your reply. However, I'm stumped at #2. I've created the forum and I can see lots and lots of settings. However I don't see "Administration" or "Permissions". Am I totally in the wrong place? There is a "restrict action" section, but it doesn't have the options you discuss.

I'm using 3.8.2+ (Build: 20200408)
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In reply to b k

Re: Forum where students can post but not reply?

by Jon Bolton -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

It depends on your theme, but either way you need to be in the forum.

If you’re using Boost, you will see a cog in the top right of the forum page. That will give you a menu that has Edit Settings, Permissions and some other links.


If you’re using another theme, you will have Administration block. In the forum, the top line will be Forum Administration and you’ll see the same links for Edit Settings, Permissions and some others.

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In reply to Jon Bolton

Re: Forum where students can post but not reply?

by b k -

Thank you! That's perfect. I would have never figured that out. Thanks for taking the time to help.

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