Using Discussion Board Moderation

Discussion boards allow interaction in the online environment. Instructors prompt or question for students to thoughtfully respond just as in a face to face class discussion. One method to encourage original thinking in response is to use a “delayed release” of messages. This can be achieved by using the moderated discussion feature. As usual in discussions, each student posts a response to the question or prompt, but with moderated discussions, students cannot see the responses of the other students until the instructor moderates and “publishes” them. This allows each student to formulate an original response without the influence of reading other students’ posts. Instructors can release all messages after initial posts to allow the discussion to flow.

To create a moderated discussion:

1.     In the discussion board area of the course, click Create Forum. 2.     Enter information in fields for name, description, etc. In section 3, be sure to select Force Moderation of Posts. Select any other criteria and click Submit. NOTE: This setting can be modified on existing discussion board forums.

To publish students posts:

1.     After the deadline for students’ submissions, navigate to and click the discussion board forum. Click Moderate Forum. NOTE: Students posts will not appear until you moderate. 2.     By each student entry, click Moderate. 3.     By default, in Section 2, Publish is selected. To make the post available to other students, click Submit. 4.     When all moderation is completed, click OK. NOTE: After publishing the initial posts for students, remove forced moderation of posts so that the discussion can continue without instructor intervention.

Thank you to the Office of Distance Education Instructional Designers for this tip!