14 2. Participating in a Discussion

Your participation in course discussions will weigh heavily in the grading of your classwork. This class puts a high value on discussion posts and responses as part of the communication within the course. Class discussions happen within the learning modules and pertain to specific assignments within those modules.

When you see the discussion icon, you can participate within assigned Start and End dates.

A discussion thread is the start of a conversation and will sometimes be started by the instructor and sometimes by the student. Each response to the original question is indented once – a response to a response is indented a second time – etc. This system of indents helps us determine which responses go together.

Responding to the main item

To compose your response to a main discussion item you are reading, click on the Reply button at the bottom right.  Be sure you’re reading the post you want to reply to, so it posts in the right place in the thread.

A good subject title tells the main point of your response. “Response to Discussion 1” is not a very useful title, especially if everyone in your course uses the same subject.  Use a subject line that describes your main point. You’ll be able to tell where you are in the discussion by reading others’ subject lines.  If subject lines are all the same, finding specific posts will be difficult.

Submitting your response

When you have completed your response, click Post to Forum button at the bottom.

Netiquette

As discussion is of a public nature, please observe proper netiquette — courteous and appropriate forms of communication and interaction over the Internet (in online discussions). This means no personal attacks, obscene language, or intolerant expression. All viewpoints should be respected.

Clear Communication

It’s very important to use standard English grammar, spelling and punctuation in your discussion posts. This will make it possible for all of us to understand each other.