Assignment discussion boards

[lisadv]

Is there a simpler way to align a discussion board for questions about an assignment rather than creating it separately and posting a link - which no matter how much you promote people ask questions via multiple means.

It would be good to have a streamlined way. Like an option built into the creation process to set up an automatically connected discussion board. 

Lisa

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @lisadv ...

I may be misunderstanding your question, but why not just use a single discussion topic, put your assignment instructions in there, and then set it as a graded discussion topic?  That way, your students have the instructions right there, and you can tell them that if there are questions about the assignment, they can post them directly below the instructions?  This way, you don't have to have a regular Canvas assignment and a separate discussion topic to deal with.  Would this work for your needs?

Again, maybe I'm not fully understanding what you're end goal is, so I apologize in advance if I've not fully answered your question.

Hope to hear back from you on this.

[lisadv]

Hi Chris Thanks for that idea. That would work if my assignment is a discussion based one. 

The type of assignment I am think of is one where student have to submit work. 

I find that for these assignments I have a page filled with information (i.e. highlighted, bolded etc. for important bits) and then create a separate discussion board for questions relating to that assignment. I find that because these are in 2 places students dont use the assignment discussion board but instead use other discussion boards (e.g. ones for general unit questions) or email me will questions. Sometimes we add an FAQ - from previous years or obvious questions - I tried this on the discussion board and on the assignment page but still find the same questions are asked. 

Just wondered if there is something clever I can do to via CANVAS to streamline this.

Lisa 

[NoahBoswell]

Hi there @lisadv ,

May you please clarify what you mean by there being two places students don't use the assignment discussion board and instead use other ones?

Do you by chance use modules? You can add the discussion board directly beneath the assignment for easy access.

- Noah

[oneilllj]

Hi @lisadv 

Another option you could do is add the link to the discussion in your assignment page/module and continue to redirect all the questions to the discussion. This might help to try and close the loop.

As an alternative option, you could try to pin the assignment discussion to the top of your discussion board so this is what they see first.

See what you think.

Thanks

Jen