Discussion Overview

Printable Handout: Discussion handout Links to an external site. | Video Tutorial: Discussions Video

In Canvas discussions are public discussions with the instructor and your peers in the course. You can adjust how you receive notifications for new messages in discussions via your notification settings. Review the numbered items below. In some courses students will be able to click discussions in the left navigation to view the discussion index page. Please note if you do not see this link in the left navigation in a course, it just means that the instructor has hidden the link and may be linking to individual discussions on the pages or in modules. Review the next page in this module for details on how to post in a discussion. In some cases discussions may not be used in a course. Check with your instructor if you are not sure. Review the numbered items below.

discussindex.png 

  1. Search - Use the search box to search for title, body or author in any discussion topic.
  2. Unread/Assignments - Click Unread to view only unread messages in all topics OR click Assignments view only discussions listed as assignments. Discussion topics that are graded will be listed with an icon that looks like a document with an A+ on it.
  3. Settings/Gear icon - Click the gear icon to view option to manually mark messages as read for all discussion topics.
  4. Pinned Discussions – The pinned group will display any discussion topic the instructor has “pinned” to stay at the top of the discussion list regardless of activity. Items in this grouping will be ordered as the instructor ordered them. If an instructor doesn’t place any discussions in the Pinned group, students will not see the pinned group.
  5. Discussions – This grouping display all topics that that are not pinned or closed for comments. Topics will be open unless there is an availability date set in the future.  Discussions in this group are sorted by recent activity. Once students post in a discussion topic they will be automatically subscribed to receive notifications about new postings in the topic. Each discussion topic will display the number count of unread (blue) messages and read (gray) messages.
  6. Closed for Comments – This grouping display any topic where the instructor has closed the topic for comments. Students will not be able to post in discussions that are closed for comments but will be able to view discussion topics.
  7. Due Date and Available Dates - Most graded discussions will have a due date and available date. If an available date is set, it means that the discussion will be closed for comments on that date.
  8. Subscribe/Unsubscribe - Once you post in a discussion you will be subscribed to the topic. This means you will receive notifications on new postings in the topic. When subscribed to a topic the button will be green. Click to unsubscribe.
  9. Notification of New Messages - By each topic will be a notification of total amount of messages have been posted (number in gray) and total amount of unread messages (number in blue).

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