Create Discussions and Enable Notifications

Discussions encourage students to think critically about their coursework and interact with each other’s ideas. Follow these instructions, or watch the video, to learn how to create discussions in Blackboard Ultra.

When to Use?

Discussions can encourage students to think critically about their coursework and interact with each other’s ideas. You can create discussions around individual course lessons or for your course in general. After you start a discussion, you can post responses of your own to guide students.

The most common form of interaction in an online course is through discussions started by an instructor. Participation and interaction in discussions don't occur naturally. You need to intentionally design discussion into your courses. To encourage engaging and quality discussion, create discussion questions carefully.

Procedure

You can create discussions in two locations within your course. You can create them on the course content page just like any other item by selecting the plus button anywhere on the page. The option to create a discussion is in the Participation and Engagement section. You may have to scroll down to view the option.

You can also create them directly on the Discussions page by selecting the New Discussion button.

If you have a lot of discussions or want to guide students through course content, consider organizing discussions into folders. Select Add Folder to create a folder. You can create new discussions directly within the folder or drag previously created discussions to the folder.

 

Enable Notifications

Click the Follow icon to enable notifications.

Notification Settings

• Follow Discussions: Users can follow select discussions and receive notifications for new contributions from peers or instructors. 
• User Notification Settings: New notification options for the Activity Stream settings allow users to manage notification types for discussions: 
  • Activity on my responses 
  • Activity on responses I have replied to 
  • Responses from instructors 
  • Responses for followed discussions 
  • Replies for followed discussions 

What the notifications look like in the stream.

 

Email Notifications

When the Email me right away option in enabled, discussion activities will be emailed. The discussion notification settings align with the user settings for the activity stream.

• Activity on my responses 
• Activity on responses I have replied to 
• Responses from instructors 
• Responses for followed discussions 
• Replies for followed discussions 

 

Video: How to create discussions