Release date 21 October
Course discussion boards are now available in the New Experience. Learners, instructors, and admins can start and join conversations tied directly to a course — asking questions, sharing context, and replying to each other without leaving the course.
Academy-Level Controls
Academy admins get full say over whether discussion boards are used at all, and how they're moderated. A new academy setting turns discussion boards on for the academy; two dependent settings let you require admin approval before posts go public, and control whether people can edit their own posts after publishing.
To enable discussion boards in your academy, navigate to the Academy Workspace > Settings > Training > Courses. There you will see near the bottom, Discussion boards in courses. Toggle to main option to the right, and then decide whether or not you want all posts to require approval and if you want team members to be able to edit their posts. Save when finished.
A Setting for Every Course
Once discussion boards are turned on for the academy, each course gets its own on/off setting, so you decide course by course where conversations make sense.
In a course's General Info area when creating or editing a course, enable the discussion board for that course by selecting Yes under Course Discussion Board. Save when finished.
A Dedicated Space for Every Course's Conversations
Learners and instructors get a Discussion Board button on the course About page.
There are separate tabs within the discussion board, depending on your academy settings and individual permissions.
- In the Lecture tab, each of the course's lectures are listed. Select one to enter its specific discussion board.
- The General tab is the course's overall discussion board.
- The Pending tab only appears when your settings have been set to mandate approval of posts.
Alternatively, admins and managers can navigate to a course's discussion page from the right navigation menu while editing the course.
Adding and Editing Posts
In the Lecture tab, begin a new post by selecting Reply to post.
In the General tab, start a new post by selecting Create new post.
In either case, submit a title and comment for the post, and select Create. If approval is needed, a statement will be shown letting you know.
In this case, the submitting individual will receive a notification that their post has been accepted or denied.
If accepted the post will appear in the appropriate discussion board.
If allowed, the posting individual can edit the post after it's been posted.
The edits, if original posts need to be approved, will also need approval, as well.
Emojis can be used as responses to individual posts.
Approving and Denying Posts
If the academy settings mandate approval of new team member posts, a Pending tab will be visible alongside the Lecture and General tabs. In that tab will be any posts in need of approval. Denying or approving a post will remove it from this list. Approving a post will move it to the thread where it belongs. Denying it will remove the post altogether. The individual will be notified either way.
Stay in the Loop With Notifications
Two new academy notifications have also been added with this release.
New discussion board post request keep admins, training managers, and the course creator informed when a post needs approval and when its status changes.
Your discussion board post was approved or declined provides two separate notifications — one for post approvals and one when posts are declined.
In personal notification settings (Avatar > Settings > Notifications), there will also be a new notification when there is a discussion board in the course — Someone started a new discussion board thread.
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Enabling Discussion Boards for Your Academy