Discussions | How to use Discussions

Brightspace offers the possibility to create an interactive space where students and lecturers can exchange ideas, questions and discuss any topic. The discussion tool allows students to collaborate by sharing documents, offers a low-key way of interaction and discussion between students and permits users to give feedback to each other and/or on shared documents.

This article will show you how to:

How to use a discussion forum

Navigate to your Course, in the green navigation bar,

1. Click on Communication, a drop-down menu will appear

2. Click on Discussions

Navigate to Discussions

This will redirect you to the Discussions homepage of your course. In this window, there are two tabs, Discussion list and Subscriptions. 

Disucssion homepage, there are two tabs, Discussion List and Subscriptions
1. Discussion list

The Discussions List tab is the landing site of the Discussion tool homepage. Here you can see the overview of all the forums with their topics and threads that have been created by teachers or students. Once on this page, you can click on the already created forum names to access them.

Discussions contain four components:

  1. In a discussion Forum you can discuss with your fellow student
  2. This can be done within one or multiple  Topics
  3. Within a Topic, you can create one or multiple Threads
  4. Below Posts you will view how many messages have been posted on the specific topic

A teacher can choose to create separate Topics/Threads for certain groups. The components you can view, depends on the teacher's settings.

Discussion list and components
2. Subscriptions

The Subscriptions tab will show a list of all forums, topics and threads you have been subscribed to and receive notifications from. Under the heading Display,

  1. Click on the downward arrow, a drop-down menu will appear
  2. Select the Display of the Subscriptions - by default, it is set to All Subscriptions
  3. Click on Apply
Subscription tab - under Display heading, select the Subscription Display

Below the Default Notification Method heading,

4.  Select the Notification Method - whether you want to view notifications in the minibar only, receive notifications via e-mail or include them in the summary of activity

5. Click on Subscribed to unsubscribe from a forum, topic or thread

6. Select the notification frequency - this applies to every forum, topic or thread individually

Subscriptions steps

You now know how to use Discussions in Brightspace!

Want to know more about Discussions in Brightspace?

Please visit: