Teachers can create a discussion forum within a course. As a student, you will have the possibility to use this forum to submit assignments, consult, ask questions and discuss with your fellow students. 

• Navigate to Course Tool in the navbar of your course. 
• Click Discussions. You will navigate to the Discussions homepage.
• Here you will find an overview of all discussion forums and topics the teacher has created for this course. This is called the Discussions List.

Discussions consists of three different components:

1. You can discuss with fellow students in a discussion forum.
2. This is done within one or several themes (topics).
3. Within this topic, it is possible to create one or multiple threads.

A topic is the place within a forum where you can post and read messages. Within the topic you can create threads, which is a main message to which people can respond with a post. A thread is created the following way: 

• Go to the Discussions homepage and click a topic. You will see a description of the topic and all threads that have been posted previously.
• Click Start a New Thread.

1. Enter a subject.
2. Add text, for example a question you want to ask or the reason for creating the thread.
3. When you have created a thread, you will automatically receive notifications (emails) when someone replies to your thread. If you do not want to receive these notifications, deselect Subscribe to this thread.
4. Click Add attachments to add a file. Then click Upload and find the right file.
5. Click Post.

Within a topic it is possible to react to other peoples' threads. For example, you can provide other students with feedback if they have posted an assignment or answer a question that another student or the teacher has asked.

• Click the desired topic on the Discussions homepage.

• Click on the title of the thread you wish to react to. 

• Click Reply to Thread.

1. Write your reaction to the thread in the HTML-editor.
2. Click Add original post text to add the post you are reacting to.
3. When you react to a thread, you will automatically receive notifications (emails) when someone replies to your thread. If you do not want to receive these notifications, deselect Subscribe to this thread.
4. Click Add attachments to add a file. Then click Upload and find the right file.
5. Click Post.

You can also tag someone in your response.

• Type the @ symol and then a few letters of the name of the person you want to tag. All people in the course whose first or last name starts with those letters will appear in a list.
• Click the person you want to tag.

The person you tagged will receive a notification and an email of the tag. If someone tags you, you will also receive a notification in your Subscription Alerts in the minibar. It will look like this: 

There are several ways to know when someone has responded to your thread.

• Below your thread you will see the word Unread. The number above indicated how many unread reactions your thread has. Click Unread to read them.

It is also possible to receive notifications for Discussions. Read the article What notifications can I turn on or off and how do I receive them per email? for more information on setting up notifications. You can also change these settings by going to Discussions.

1. Click Subscriptions on the Discussions homepage.
2. Select which notifications you would like to receive.

If the teacher enables this feature, it is possible to rate the posts of other students. There are several ways to do this: 

• Five-Star Rating Scheme: you can give other students one to five stars for their post.
• Up Vote/Down Vote Rating Scheme: you can give the post a positive or negative vote.
• Up Vote Only Rating Scheme: you can give the post a positive vote.

If the only option you have is a positive vote, you can vote by clicking the plus icon. Clicking the icon again allows you to change or undo your rating.