I've set up my discussions page wrong and need help

[N_C]

I am an instructor who has come back to Canvas after several years. I set up my discussion page in a way I thought students would be able to click and reply to my post but instead they are able to make their own posts and set the time the post is allowed to be seen. What did I do wrong? How do I set the course so they post in a thread rather than make a whole new post? Thanks guys!

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

The first two screenshots are showing the settings for a specific discussion, that's now what you want.

There are two ways to disallow students from creating new discussions:

1. In your third image, you see a "Settings" button on the top right. That would open a pop up like this:
   You want to deselect the "Create discussion topics" checkbox under student settings.
   
   
   
2. There's also that same option in the course settings, named "Let students create discussion topics". They seem to sync between themselves, so either one would work, you don't need to do both:  How do I set details for a course? - Instructure Community - 1037  

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

The first two screenshots are showing the settings for a specific discussion, that's now what you want.

There are two ways to disallow students from creating new discussions:

1. In your third image, you see a "Settings" button on the top right. That would open a pop up like this:
   You want to deselect the "Create discussion topics" checkbox under student settings.
   
   
   
2. There's also that same option in the course settings, named "Let students create discussion topics". They seem to sync between themselves, so either one would work, you don't need to do both:  How do I set details for a course? - Instructure Community - 1037  

[N_C]

Thank you Gabriel33.  I unchecked the box allowing students to create their own discussion and asked my students to try to reply to my initial introduction and it is working. I sure appreciate your quick help!! You saved me :). My students that have already created their own introduction threads are currently reposting under my initial intro. Will I be able to remove their created discussion threads to clean up our discussion area? Thanks so much.

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

1. You can delete the discussions by clicking the vertical kebab menu on the right of each discussion, and then choosing delete:
   
   
   
2. Alternatively, and perhaps you could do for a few days before deleting them, you can move those to the "Closed for Comments" section in the Discussions page, just to make sure the students who made that mistake don't lose points for forgetting to make a new post in your original discussion