The Forum tool can also be used for the purposes of assessment. You could use your student's participation in an online Forum contribute towards their participation mark for your unit. You could also use a series of Forum posts in lieu of more traditional long form essay or report. Forum posts can also be used for summative assessment, and can provide useful feedback on how much of your unit's content your students understand.

• To learn more about using a Forum for the purposes of assessment, please read our Guide How to use ratings to grade LEO Forums'

There are several different kinds of forums, each suited to a different context and with varying key features.
You can select the type of Forum you would like to add to your LEO Unit under the 'General' tab in your settings page.Simply click on the dropdown menu next to 'Forum type'.

• Standard forums for general use: An open forum that allows participants to create their own topics, post and reply. Whilst a standard forum provides the most open format it can generate a lot of discussion to keep track of. This is where you need to set expectations around how much time, as a teacher, you will invest in responding to posts, or if it is for peers to respond only.
• Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format: An open forum where anyone can start a new post. Topics are displayed on a single page with links to ‘discuss this topic’.
• Each person posts one discussion: Participants can only post one topic, which everyone can then reply to. This is good if you want to create a body of knowledge where each student is responsible for only one topic.
• A single simple discussion: A single topic everyone can reply to (cannot be used with separate groups). Keeps the postings on topic.
• Q&A forum: Participants must post their answer before seeing other replies. This is a useful forum to use to provide equity in allowing all participants to respond without feeling they are repeating previous comments.

Forums provide an opportunity for you to engage with your students, and your students to engage with each other, outside of class time. Depending on the kind of Forum you have added to your LEO unit, students are able to post comments, questions, and responses (in both text and multimedia format) and the Forum will maintain a record of the discussion for you.

LEO Guide: How to set up a Forum

LEO Guide: How to add a new discussion topic to a Forum

LEO Guide: How to print a Forum discussion topic

LEO Guide: How to use ratings to Grade LEO Forums

Fostering OnLine Discussion (FOLD) (2017) Fostering online discussion in Higher Education [online] from: http://www.fold.org.au/index.html

Moodle Docs 3.9 - Forum activity.

Carter, C. (2013). Raising Digital Hands: Running Effective Forums. [online] EdTechReview. Available at: http://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/insights/478-raising-digital-hands-running-effective-forums

In this case study Deborah Dickinson talks about her use of the forum tool in Moodle, which was acknowledged at City University’s Moodle awards in 2010-11.

Akin, L. and Neal, D. (2007). CREST+ Model: Writing Effective Online Discussion Questions. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 3 (2).

Laurillard, D. (2002). Rethinking University Teaching. A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies. London: Routledge

Pelz, B. (2004). ( My ) Three principles of effective online pedagogy. Social Psychology, 8(3), 33-46.
Contains a discussion rubric and rating scale to ensure students conform to Bills’ first principle, ‘Let the students do (most of) the work.’