Discussions

Teachers can use Discussions to create and manage online classroom discussions. Two kinds of discussions are available in Campus Instruction, scored discussions that are aligned to an assignment and unscored discussions that are not. These discussions can be related to course content, group work, and other various classroom activities. Scored discussions are created in assignments and unscored discussions are created in the Discussions tool. An existing unscored discussion cannot be aligned to an assignment.

Students must use Campus Student to respond to discussions, not the Campus Portal. In Campus Student discussions list collects all discussions assigned to the student, both those aligned to assignments and those that aren't. Students can click a discussion to respond to the teacher's prompt or respond to a classmate. Students can also access discussions aligned to an assignment through that specific assignment.

inappropriate content can be flagged, which alerts the teacher that there is content which should be reviewed.

Creating a New Scored Discussion

To create a scored discussion, create an assignment and select Discussion in the For Students section.

• In an assignment that has a discussion enabled, the Assignment Name becomes the Name of the discussion and the Student Instructions serves as the discussion prompt. Once enabled, time fields are added to the Assigned and Due Dates. Scroll up after enabling the discussion to modify times.

• Discussions are limited to a single section. If multiple sections are selected in the Scheduling Alignment area of the assignment, separate discussions are created for each section.

• Teachers have the option to Allow students to edit their responses. Previous versions of edited posts are not available in the discussions tool. This option can be turned on or off at any time. 

• Students must use Campus Student to respond to discussions, not the Campus Portal.

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Here is a video from Infinite Campus about how to Create a Scored Discussion.

Scoring Discussions

Responses to scored discussions can be viewed and scored in the Submission scoring screen, which is accessed from the Control Center or the Evaluate Discussion link in the Grade Book. In this scoring screen, click Create a Post to make a new post in the discussion or Reply to respond to a specific post. See the Flagged Posts section for more information about the flagging posts and resolving flags.

In the scoring screen, select a student's name in the dropdown list to highlight their posts and simplify scoring. The first student in the class is highlighted by default. Enter scores and flags in the header of the scoring screen, and switch between students to change the highlight.

Creating a New Unscored Discussion

1. Click New Discussion.

2. Enter a Discussion Name. This name displays in the list of discussions on Campus Student.

3. Enter a Description for the discussion, such as the opening prompt.

4. Select a Section for the discussion. Only one section can be selected and all students in that section have access to the discussion.

5. Modify the starting date and time if desired. The current date and time pre-populate.

6. Enter an End Date and End Time to suspend student access to the discussion at that point. Students will still be able to view the discussion after this date/time, but they are not able to add posts.

7. Mark the Allow participants to edit their responses checkbox if desired. Previous versions of edited posts are not available in the discussions tool. This option can be turned on or off at any time.

8. Click Create when finished.

Click on a discussion to view it. From here, a teacher can:

• Make a new post by clicking Create a Post

• Generate a printable version of the discussion.

• Edit the discussion details.

• Reply to students.

• Flag student content and resolve flags. See the Flagged Posts section below for more information.

• If a discussion doesn't have student responses yet, it can be Archived to hide it from the teacher's discussion list.

Here is a video from Infinite Campus about creating an Unscored Discussion.

Flagged Posts

Inappropriate posts can be flagged by the teacher or by another student. Discussions with a flagged post are indicated by a . A notification is also sent to teachers when a post has been flagged.

Flagged posts display highlighted in red. Click Resolve Flag to view the reason the post was flagged and resolve it.

• Remove Flag removes the flag from the post and leaves it in the discussion.

• Archive Post removes the post from the discussion. All replies to that post are also archived.

• Close returns to the discussion without resolving the flag.

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