Creating a single main Forum for all students

Creating a single main Forum for all students

by Marcelo Carvalho -
Number of replies: 3

Hi

How to create a single forum accessible for all students, for the whole institution, not depending on any course?


I could create a Forum under the Site Home, and even put a shortcut for it at the Dashboard, but there are side effects:

- This Forum is visible at the Site Home page even for non-authenticated users, and if hiding it, it becomes inaccessible, even using the direct shortcut placed at the Dashboard

- Users (students and teachers) cannot post if not manually assigned a local role by the admin in the Forum context, what is very annoying to be done for each new user


Is there another way, or workarounds for the side effects?


The idea is to keep it’s access at the Site Home (for authenticated users) and at the Dashboard (may be using shortcut).

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In reply to Marcelo Carvalho

Re: Creating a single main Forum for all students

by Mary Cooch -
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Why not make a course and have everyone on the site enrolled in it? Then add that link as a shortcut on the Dashboard.
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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Creating a single main Forum for all students

by Marcelo Carvalho -
Hello Mary! Thank you for the suggestion. Yes it is an option. The only issue remaining is that if I try to hide the Course to not be seen in the regular courses lists (as everyone will be enrolled), it becomes unavailable for students, even if having a direct shortcut.
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In reply to Marcelo Carvalho

Re: Creating a single main Forum for all students

by Andrew Lyons -
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There are two ways that you can do this:

A) You can create the forum, visit the Settings -> Permissions page, and then Prevent the "mod/forum:viewdiscussion" capability for the "Guest" role.

This will mean that the forum is listed on the site homepage, but trying to view the forum will redirect the user to the login page. Authenticated users will be able to interact with the forum as normal.

B) Add an Access Restriction based on a profile field - if you set a restriction like: "Email address is not empty" and then press the eye icon, then it will be hidden for guest users, and visible to logged-in users.

Hope this helps,

Andrew
Average of ratings: Useful (2)