Web CT Discussion Board

The Discussion Board creates a sense of community in a course, a sharing among classmates of thoughts, ideas and impressions of people with similar interests. Online students often express the feeling that they are more connected to their classmates and instructor because of the in-depth and personal discussions that occur.

When you click on the Discussion icon, you will see something like this:

There are several things you need to note on this page. First, note the listings under the heading Topic. These correspond to the various topics available in the discussion board.

Next, you might notice the Status of the topics. Unlocked topics are topics that you can post to freely. Locked topics prevent you from posting to that topic until the proper time. It also prevents you from posting to topics that have already been completed. Note that all of these are public topics, meaning anyone in the class can post to them.

WebCT keeps track of the Total number of messages in a particular topic and the number of Unread messages in a topic. Those numbers help you determine whether you have read all of the postings since the last time you visited the Discussion Board.

The Main and Notes topics are default topics provided by WebCT. Some instructors use the Main topic for general questions; others prefer you to use only the topics set up for the course. Consult your instructor about using the Main topic.

Finally, note the ALL topic. If you press ALL, all of the messages for all of the topics will be displayed.

The Search button lets you search for a specific subject within the Discussion Board. This can be very useful when you are searching for specific messages. Search lets you find messages in all or specific topics based on Name, User ID, Message Number, Subject, Date or the Message itself.

Posted messages, called postings, appear in the main body of the window. The subject of the original post appears in bold. The original post forms the basis for a threaded discussion: an original post followed by replies. This subject line is created when a person chooses Compose Message (as opposed to replying to another message). The name of the person who posted this original post appears immediately below the subject.

Replies to the original post are listed by name and indented from the original message. Replies to these replies are listed by name and indented even further.

This entire list of messages, including the original post and all the replies, constitutes a Thread. Threaded discussions are invaluable for following the interchange of ideas between two or more persons. They allow us to follow a discussion from start to finish.

When you click on the Reply button, a new window will appear that looks like this:

This is the box into which you will type your response. Alternatively, you may choose to paste a message here that you have composed in a word processing program.

When you have completed your message, you can preview it before you post it by clicking on the Preview button. This option lets you make certain everything appears in your message the way that you want it to appear. You also have the option of wrapping or not wrapping the next but please, always wrap the text. If you want to change part of your text, click on Edit and it will take you back to the first text box where you can edit your work. If you don't like what you have written or if you discover you have responded to the wrong message, you can click on the Cancel button. If you want to attach an image or a file to your posting, the Browse and Attach File functions will allow you to do so. When you are satisfied that everything is okay, then click on the Post button.

When you post your message, you will return to the message window for that topic (i.e. the list of messages). At that time, you will need to click on Update Listing to see your message. Let me put it another way: you will not see your message until you click on Update Listing. Do not repeatedly post your message thinking it's not getting posted without first clicking on Update Listing.