Glenys Hanson

Hi Tim and everyone,

I should have made it clear that my list of Advantages and Disadvantages refers to the Moodle 1.9 version. This is the only version I've used as a teacher with live classes and the possiblity of using Moodle 2.0 that way is months away in my situation. But I'm a convert (deliberate religious terminology ), I'd never voluntarily go back to using the old forum. ForumNG is a great time saver when you're dealing with a lot of students and and a lot of messages.

I forgot one little disadvantage, even though it's AJAX, you have to click twice to rate a message instead of just once as on the standard forum. Is there a reason for it?

Cheers,

Glenys

Hi everyone,

I thought it might be useful to have a list of ForumNG pros and cons - you can download it from Google docs: forumng.2.34.zip. (I've put it here because I don't find it easy to locate.)

I'm not sure my list is complete - can anyone help?

Cheers,

Glenys

Advantages

1. Advanced DHTML/AJAX (dynamic web page) support in the discussion page, which allows you to reply to, edit, rate, and delete posts without leaving the page.

2. Unique (only) discussion view which combines the benefits of 'nested' and date-related views; it is a nested view, so you can see the discussion structure, but except for unread posts (and their immediate parents), posts are 'collapsed' to a short summary, so you don't have to scroll through mounds of junk to get to the unread posts. Expanding a post is one click away.

3. Thanks to 2), when replying to a post, the whole previous discussion can be visible, not just the previous post.

4. Up to 3 attachments can be added.

5. Ability to merge discussions.

6. Forum locking.

7. Save as draft.

8. "Change subject (optional)" appears when replying as hint to do so if necessary.

9. Permalink: a direct link to a particular posting.

10. Export to Word.

11. Show readers: list of people who have viewed the discussion via the website even if they haven't posted.

12. The rating system has friendly star graphics (this can be modifed to whatever you want) and can be used for grading or without a grade.

13. Sticky discussions - choose to have a discussion stay on top of list.

14. Mark posts as important.

15. Popup message warning you to copy the message before refreshing the page.

16. Popup Warning: You must save any changes to this post before 10:19 AM. After that time you will no longer be allowed to edit the post.

Disadvantages

1. Images uploaded as attachments by students form their hard disks do not appear in the body of a message. - they appear as attachments. This was at the request of OU testers. I'd really like to have this as an option in 1.9. In 2.0 students can upload images anywhere directly through the HTML editor.

2. Not integrated with Moodle core features:

   1. Does not appear in the 'list of all a user's posts".

   2. Not integrated with the Latest Course News block.

3. A post is considerd "empty" and won't post if there is no text, only an image.

4. To include teachers in "Force eveyone to subscribe" the teacher ID "3" has to be manually added by the Admin to the list of Subscriber roles in the ForumNG settings.

Bonsoir Daniel,

Alors, un peu de "naming and praising" pour Peter Friesen - c'est  lui qui est notre ami. Il travaile à SUNY Plattsburgh à Plattsburgh, New York le jour et crée Conversion Thingy le soir au Canada. Il est inscrit sur Using Moodle depuis 2003 !

Cheers,

Glenys

Hi there,

In Moodle 1.9, you can do this in the non-standard modules Questionnaire and Feedback.

Cheers,

Glenys

Hi Nicolás,

If you use the ForumNG you can lock a forum just by clicking on a button.

You can find it on Google docs here:forumng.2.34.zip

Cheers,

Glenys