Forums and discussions

Forums are used widely on Moodle, with two main purposes: Announcements and Discussions.

Announcement forums:

Most Moodle pages will have Announcements or News forum.  These are for Tutors and Administrators to send out information and reminders, so students are not able to create a new thread or reply.  Students will be subscribed to the Announcements / News forum, so any posts will automatically be sent to your UCL email address.

Discussion and Learning forums:

Discussions and Learning forums are interactive, where both students and staff can create new threads and reply to existing ones.  The simplest might be a place where you can ask a question (to both staff members and other students) or an informal place where students can get to know each other or chat. Forums can often be great learning opportunities for students. Students can get answers quickly and also test their knowledge and communication skills by sharing their own answers or comments. Forum posts will always be visible in Moodle, but will only be emailed to you if you are subscribed to the forum.  Most forums will have Automatic subscription: where everyone is initially subscribed but have the option to leave.  Some forums may have Optional subscription: where everyone is initially not subscribed but has the option to join.  If there are multiple forums on a Moodle page, you might be subscribed to some and not to others. 

Occasionally your teacher may instruct you to use an Advanced forum on Moodle. An Advanced forum allows for anonymous discussion. 

How do I access a forum on a Moodle course?

On any Moodle course, you can navigate to a forum directly as you would any activity on Moodle.

On large courses with multiple forums, you may find it quicker to navigate to a forum by clicking on the course Index near the top of UCL Moodle.

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and search for Forum in the search bar. All the available forums in this course will show.

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How do I post, reply and favourite posts?

Navigate to the discussion forum and click Add a new discussion topic to create a post.

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Alternatively, you can reply to posts, by navigating to a post, and clicking Reply (1 in image) underneath the post. Write your reply (2) in the text box and click 'Post to forum'(3).

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Under the reply options, click Advanced (4) or 'Use advanced ' if you want to format your text, add an image or add an attachment with the TinyMCE editor.

Clicking Permalink (5) under a post generates a permanent link to that post. This can useful if you want to share or reference another post in your own post.

Click the star icon next to a discussion topic to Favourite it. This will pin the discussion topic to the top of the Forum for easy access. 

You can find further guidance on replying, marking Favourite, and other forum functions on the Moodle docs guides.

Can I edit or delete my forum post?

After posting, you have a 30-minute window to edit or delete your post. The edit and delete options should display under your post. After the 30-minute window, only a Course Administrator or Tutor can edit or delete a post.

How do I check if I am subscribed to a forum?

Your forum subscription will display on the This course tab, under Forums as shown above.

If you wish to check a specific forum, you subscription status will be shown in the Administration block, on the right of the screen:

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I am not receiving email notifications but I am subscribed to the forum, what can I do?

If you are not receiving emails for forums you are subscribed to, check your Junk / Clutter folders, in case they have been misfiled.

How do I reduce the number of forum emails I receive?

By default, Moodle will send you out one email for each post, if you are subscribed to a forum.  If you wish to reduce the number of email, please see our Moodle FAQs.