17.5. Moderating Discussions¶

17.5.1. About Discussion Moderation Roles¶

You can designate a team of people to help you run course discussions. All course team members can view discussion topics and posts, but only team members who have one of the discussion moderation roles have additional abilities to moderate discussions and work with posts, responses, and comments.

17.5.2. Assigning Discussion Moderation Roles¶

You must either be the course author, or have the Admin role, to add people to discussion moderation roles.

You must obtain the email address or username for each person that you want to add.

• To obtain the email address or username for a course team member, in the LMS select Instructor, then select Membership. In the Course Team Management section, select the current course team role (Staff or Admin) of the person whose information you are looking for. From the list of course team members with the selected role locate the required email address or username.
• To obtain the email address or username for an enrolled learner, in the LMS select Instructor, then select Data Download. In the Reports section, select Download profile information as a CSV. In the downloaded file, locate the required email address or username.

17.5.3. Provide Guidelines for Learners¶

You can develop a set of best practices for discussion participation and make them available to learners as a course handout file or on a defined page in your course. These guidelines can define your expectations and optionally introduce features of edX discussions.

You can also refer learners to the Participating in Course Discussions section in the Open EdX Learner’s Guide. Consider referring learners in your courses to that section, which describes the structure and features of edX course discussions, and provides useful information to help learners make the most of their participation in course discussions.

17.5.4. Develop a Positive Discussion Culture¶

Team members who are moderating discussions can cultivate qualities in their own discussion interactions to make their influence positive and their time productive.

• Encourage quality contributions: thank learners whose posts have a positive impact and who answer questions.
• Check links, images, and videos in addition to the text of each message. Edit offensive or inappropriate posts quickly, and explain why.
• Review posts with a large number of votes and recognize “star posters” publicly and regularly.
• Stay on topic yourself: before responding to a post, be sure to read it completely.
• Maintain a positive attitude. Acknowledge problems and errors without assigning blame.
• Provide timely responses. More time needs to be scheduled for answering discussion questions when deadlines for homework, quizzes, and other milestones approach.
• Discourage redundancy: before responding to a post, search for similar posts. Make your response to the most pertinent or active post and then copy its URL and use it to respond to the redundant threads.
• Publicize issues raised in the discussions: add questions and their answers to an FAQ topic, or announce them in a course update.

For a template that you can use to develop guidelines for your course moderators, see Guidance for Discussion Moderators.

17.5.5. Find Questions and Discussions¶

When learners create posts, they specify the type of post to indicate whether they are asking for concrete information (a question) or starting an open-ended conversation (a discussion).

On the Discussion page, a question mark image identifies posts that ask questions, and a conversation bubble image identifies posts that start discussions. When an answer is provided and marked as correct for a question, a check or tick mark image replaces the question mark image. For more information, see Answer Questions and Mark Questions as Answered.

The titles and icons of posts that you have not yet read appear in blue, with a blue vertical bar on the post’s left side. Posts that you have read have dark gray titles and icons. When new responses and comments are made on posts that you have read, a “new” indicator displays with the number of new responses or comments that you have not yet read.

In addition to these visual cues, filters can help you find questions and discussions that need review. In the discussion navigation pane on the Discussion page, you can also select the following options from the Show all drop-down menu.

• Unread, to list only the discussions and questions that you have not yet viewed.
• Unanswered, to list only questions that do not yet have any responses marked as answers.
• Flagged, to list only posts that learners have reported as inappropriate.

17.5.6. Edit Messages¶

Team members with the Discussion Moderator, Discussion Admin, Community TA or Group Community TA role can edit the content of posts, responses, and comments. Messages that include spoilers or solutions, or that contain inappropriate or off-topic material, should be edited quickly to remove text, images, or links.

1. View the live version of the course.
2. On the Discussions page, open the post with the content that requires editing. You can select a single topic from the drop-down list of discussion topics, apply a filter, or search to locate the post.
3. For the post or for the response or comment that you want to edit, select the “More” icon and then Edit.
4. Remove the problematic portion of the message, or replace it with standard text such as “[REMOVED BY MODERATOR]”.
5. Communicate the reason for your change. For example, “Posting a solution violates the honor code.”

17.5.7. Delete Messages¶

Team members with the Discussion Moderator, Discussion Admin, Community TA or Group Community TA role can delete posts, responses, or comments. It might be more appropriate to delete rather than edit posts that consist of spam or include abusive language.

1. View the live version of the course.
2. On the Discussion page, open the post with the content that requires deletion. You can select a single topic from the drop-down list of discussion topics, apply a filter, or search to locate the post.
3. For the post or for the response or comment that you want to delete, select the “More” icon and then Delete.
4. Select OK to confirm the deletion.

17.5.8. Respond to Reports of Misuse¶

Learners have the option to report contributions that they find inappropriate. Team members with the Discussion Moderator, Discussion Admin, Community TA or Group Community TA role can check for messages that have been flagged in this way and edit or delete them as needed.

1. View the live version of your course and select Discussion at the top of the page.
2. In the discussion navigation pane at the side of the page, use the filter drop-down list (set to Show all by default) to select Flagged.
3. Review listed posts. A post is listed if it or any of its responses or comments has been reported. The reported contribution includes a Reported identifier.
4. Edit or delete the post, response, or comment. Alternatively, remove the flag: select the “More” icon and then Unreport.

17.5.9. View Profile Information for Discussion Participants¶

To find out more about a specific discussion participant, you can view that learner’s edX profile from their linked username on discussion posts.

To access a learner’s profile from a discussion post that they contributed, follow these steps.

1. On the Discussion page, select a username in a post, response, or comment.

2. On the discussion page for that learner, select the linked username.

   The learner’s account profile page opens. Learners can have either a limited profile or a full profile.

For more information about profiles, see sfd dashboard.

17.5.10. Block Users¶

If a learner repeatedly misuses course discussions despite being warned, you can unenroll that learner from the course. For more information, see Unenroll Learners from a Course. The learner cannot re-enroll in the course if the enrollment period for the course is over.