The Discussion Forum is a communication tool that can be used to enhance a course web site. Conversations are grouped in threads that contain a main posting and all related replies. When you add a new forum, you will be presented with a choice of different types - a simple single-topic discussion, a free-for-all general forum, or a one-discussion-thread-per-user.

Students (and faculty) can subscribe to a particular forum and then be emailed copies of the discussion. Students or faculty can also choose to unsubscribe (although a teacher can create a forum where every student is subscribed).

Forums can be either graded or ungraded. For more information, see this video on forums.

From the Course Menu:

1. Click on Turn editing on link in the Course Menu section.
2. Click on the dropdown box labeled Add an activity.. next to the area you want to add a Forum to. Select the Add Forum option.
3. Give the forum a name in the Forum name text box.
4. Choose a Forum Type. There are three different types of forum to choose from: 1) A single simple discussion - is just a single topic, all on one page. Useful for short, focussed discussions. 2) Standard forum for general use - is an open forum where any one can start a new topic at any time. This is the best general-purpose forum. 3) Each person posts one discussion - Each person can post exactly one new discussion topic (everyone can reply to them though). This is useful when you want each student to start a discussion about, say, their reflections on the week's topic, and everyone else responds to these.
5. Enter the description of te forum in the Forum introduction field.
6. In the "Can a student post to this forum?" section, you can allow new posts or prevent them. This option allows you to restrict students from posting content in this forum. For most forums you will want to leave students unrestricted and choose the first option to allow them to start new discussion topics (threads), and also to post replies within those threads. Sometimes, however, you will want to disable this ability. For example, this is useful for the News forum when you only want teachers to post new items that appear on the course main page. In this case you might choose the third option "No discussions, no replies". Sometimes you might want to only allow teachers to start new discussions, but still allow students to reply within those threads (for example within the news forum on the site home page). In this case you would choose the second option, "No discussions, but replies are allowed".
7. The "Force everyone to be subscribed?" section controls the Forum Subscription. When a person is subscribed to a forum it means that they will be sent email copies of every post in that forum (posts are sent about 60 minutes after the post was first written). People can usually choose whether or not they want to be subscribed to each forum. However, if you choose to force subscription on a particular forum then all course users will be subscribed automatically, even those that enrol at a later time. This is especially useful in the News forum and in forums towards the beginning of the course (before everyone has worked out that they can subscribe to these emails themselves). If you choose the option "Yes, initially" then all current and future course users will be subscribed initially but they can unsubscribe themselves at any time. If you choose "Yes, forever" then they will not be able to unsubscribe themselves. *Note how the "Yes, initially" option behaves when you update an existing forum: Changing from "Yes, initially" to "No" will not unsubscribe existing users, it will only affect future course users. Similarly changing later to "Yes, initially" will not subscribe existing course users but only those enrolling later.
8. The " Read tracking for this forum? " section controls the Forum Tracking Type. If 'read tracking' for forums is enabled, users can track read and unread messages in forums and discussions. The instructor can choose to force a tracking type on a forum using this setting. There are three choice for this setting: Optional [default]: students can turn tracking on or off for the forum at their discretion. On: Tracking is always on. Off: Tracking is always off.
9. You can control the Maximum attachment size by using the drop box and selection a size. Sometimes it is possible to upload a file larger than the set size, but the file will not be saved on the server and you might see an error.
10. You can Allow posts to be rated if you wish. Do this by clicking the check box that says Use ratings. Use the drop box to choose who will be allowed to rate the posts in the Users section. Use the drop box to choose who will be allowed to view the ratings in the View section. You can also restrict ratings to posts within a certian date range by clicking the box next to "Restrict ratings to posts with dates in this range" and using the drop boxes to select the dates and times.
11. Use the Group Mode to choose the interaction between the users on this forum. The group mode can be one of three levels: No groups - there are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community. Separate groups - each group can only see their own group, others are invisible. Visible groups - each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups. The group mode can be defined at two levels: 1) Course level - The group mode defined at the course level is the default mode for all activities defined within that course. 2) Activity level - Each activity that supports groups can also define its own grouping mode. If the course is set to "force group mode" then the setting for each activity is ignored.
12. Lastly, choose if you wish to make the forum Visible to students by either selecting "show" or "hide" corresponding drop box.
13. Don't forget to click Save changes when you are done!