semester-long discussion forum

[RichardSwanson]

I want to create a discussion forum to which students contribute 3 times per week.  Is there a way to do this that counts their contributions, gives them participation credit each week, and doesn't confuse the grade book?

[nronald]

Hi,

As there is a weekly component to this, I would suggest making a discussion forum for each week.  I assume the topics/questions change over time.

When I've done graded discussions, I've made a rubric (in this case, I'd have one criteria with 0, 1, 2, 3 or more posts, however note these would have 0-3 points each) and then manually go through the students and mark off how many posts they have made. While it's not automatic, I found it pretty quick in the end, plus it also means you can moderate for posts that are off-topic or unsatisfactory (e.g., one word). Complete/incomplete can also be used but this then requires another mouse click to select "complete", which I found added unnecessary time.

If there are a large number of students in the class, I'd also recommend making it a group discussion and dividing students into smaller groups.