[ARCHIVED] Discussions Mark as Read dots

[mrwnphs2]

Hello, teachers and students see Mark as Read or Mark as Unread dots. If a student does Mark as Unread, does that changed the "Read' status for other students or me (the teacher)? If I "Mark as Read" do I change the status for students?  In other words, is the Mark as Read status different for every individual?

[Chris_Hofer]

Good evening, @mrwnphs2 ...

Those dots to indicate if a reply has been read or not are tied to the individual user.  If you mark responses as "read", that only applies to you...not to any other people in your course.  These Guides may help: How do I mark discussion replies as read or unread as an instructor? and How do I change discussion settings to manually mark discussion replies as read as an instructor?.

[lshulman]

My issue with the "mark as read" dots in the Redesign is that I might mark a parent post as "read" but once a new reply is added, the dot by the parent post turns green again. This can be confusing as I might think "oh, I must have missed that one" and then read and grade it again (a second time) or simply waste my time reading something I'd already read.

Just another reason why using the side bar is not helpful because any new replies to the thread do not show as new independently of the parent post.