How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by George Kao -
Number of replies: 11

How does Moodle inform the user (other htan the subscription feature which is not customizable except "subscribe to this whole forum" or "not") when there are:

1) New posts in a forum

2) New posts in a thread?

I'm thinking of the system phpBB has, which clearly shows registered users where there has been new activity.  How does Moodle serve that purpose?

thank you.

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In reply to George Kao

Re: How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by Gustav W Delius -
You will find all new posts for all forums listed in the "Recent Activity" box on the course home page. Also when you go to a particular forum the date of the latest post is displayed for each thread and the threads are listed so that the one with the latest post is on top.
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In reply to George Kao

Re: How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by Hans de Zwart -
Currently Moodle does not have this functionality. There is one more way of finding new posts and that is through the recent activity box. If you click on "Full report on recent activity" you can do some customisation on what you want to see. Try it!
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In reply to Hans de Zwart

Re: How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by George Kao -

thank you both for your helpful answers!

Now I am wondering about permissions & recent activity.

Let's say I'm enrolled in a course and part of a student team that has a private forum in that course (is this possible?) and let's say you're in the same course but part of a different student team (with a different private forum).  When you check recent activity I assume you will see the recent posts in all forums, including your private forums... but will you also see the activity in my private forum?

thanks!

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In reply to George Kao

Re: How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by Przemyslaw Stencel -

a private forum in that course (is this possible?)

It is possible using groups - a forum in group mode allows the different groups to run parallell discussions (groups may be allowed to view others' discussions or not)

you will see the recent posts in all forums, including your private forums

Yes.

but will you also see the activity in my private forum?

No.

Hope this helps smile

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In reply to George Kao

Re: How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by George Kao -

Thank you all for your helpful responses.

To continue the inquiry...

How do I quickly check to see if the discussions I have started (or replied to) have garnered new replies since I last logged on?

Thanks!

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In reply to George Kao

Re: How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by Przemyslaw Stencel -
Unfortunately, I think there is no automatic way to do it sad

I see you're planning to use Recent Activity a lot, so there is one little glitch in it which you should be aware of. The "Recent Activity" shows new messages since you last displayed any page in the current course, so in some circumstances you may actually miss a message. Suppose you enter a course at 10:00 and look at the recent Activity Box, where you notice a few messages that you would like to reply to. So you open these messages and post replies, which takes you 20 minutes, and then you log off. Unfortunately, if any messages were posted by somebody else between 10:00 and 10:20, you will never see them in the "Recent Activity" sad - just something to keep in mind.

A workaround which I use is to visit the course homepage again just before logging out and check if there have been any new messages posted while I was using the course. (But then I might again see some messages which I would like to respond to, so I open them, post replies and redisplay the homepage before logging out... and I might again see some messages which I would like to respond to... wink)
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In reply to Przemyslaw Stencel

Re: How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by George Kao -

Thank you Przemyslaw for that helpful answer! 

Our school is currently using BlackBoard and considering switching to Moodle.  What I am concerned about is losing some of the features we do like about BlackBoard, regardless of how it sucks.

One feature I see that we would lose, then, is the ability to mark messages "read" or "unread".  Moodle doesn't seem to be able to do this.  Is that correct?

Seems like this (making messages read/unread) would be an important feature in any educational platform that is heavy on using Forums.  Let's say you're a teacher that doesn't want to miss any of your students' postings.  Or you're a superduper student that doesn't want to miss any other student's or teacher's postings.  Seems Moodle does not make it easy to catch unread posts... unless you subscribe to the forums.

Am I correct in saying that?

Thank you.

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In reply to George Kao

Re: How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by koen roggemans -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Translators
You could also try the RSS-function in the forums with a separate RSS-reader for keeping up with high loaded forms. I follow some of the moodle.org discussions that way and I like it.(mark read/unread, new, ...)
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In reply to Przemyslaw Stencel

Re: How do you know if a forum or thread has new posts?

by W Page -
Hi All!

I think that a feature Thomas Robb mentions in another forum would be nice,
Moodle versus Blackboard --Forum messages read
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=9345&parent=45187
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=9345&parent=45193

Hopefully, whenever a MyMoodle page becomes possible, there will be a way for the user (Admin, Sub-Admin, Teacher, Teacher Assistants, Students, etc.) could get this type of information also on their page.  That way, they would know what forums they are subscribed to have additional posts in different courses.

WP1
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