WebCT Bulletin Board - Designer Options

• Bulletin Board Overview
• Attachments
• Configuration Options
• Designer Options

• Listing Messages
• Reading Messages
• Sending Messages

Overview of Designer Options

When you access the Bulletin Board from a Homepage, the default forum is All. This forum lists all unread messages in all forums. You can, however, choose a different forum to start out with. From the Bulletin Board, click Settings Menu in the left frame. If you are in the No Frames view, then the various functions are located on the topmost screen. The following functions are features of the Settings Menu.

• Settings: This function enables you to specify the layout of your Bulletin Board. See Configuration Options for more information.
• Reset: Removes all forums and messages.
• Threaded/Unthreaded: This function enables you to sort messages in the Bulletin Board by subject or by date. See Configuration Options: Sort Option for more information.
• Forum Management: This function allows you to create forums within the Bulletin Board. You can also give certain students access to specific forums by making the forums private and then selecting the students who will have access to the forum. Clicking on Forum Management in the Settings Menu will bring up the Forum Management screen (see Figure 1).

Figure 1   Forum Management window

The Forum Management frame lists all forums except the default ones (Main, Notes and All). The Private Forum column within this frame indicates whether a forum is private or public. To perform an operation on a particular forum, select its option button and click the Add, Delete, or Rename button on the toolbar.

If you select a private forum, the right frame will display the names and User IDs of the members of that forum. To change an existing forum from Private to Public, select the option button for the desired forum and then click Private in the Toggle row on the Forum Management toolbar.

Note that you can click on a column label to sort that column. Click on Select Members to choose students to add or remove from the forum.

All the students and graders as well as you, the instructor, are listed. The Status check boxes next to the names of current forum members are selected. You can click on a column label to sort that column. Once you are done selecting or deselecting members (by clicking the Status check box), click Done to return to the member list for the forum. Clicking Cancel returns you to the member list and leaves it unchanged.

The Forum Management toolbar (see Figure 1) gives you the following options.

• Done: Closes the Forum Management window
• Add: Allows you to create a new forum (see Figure 3 below).
• Delete: Removes the selected forum and removes all messages which have been posted to that forum.
• Rename: Allows the forum to be renamed.
• Private: Toggles the selected forum's private/public setting
• Anonymous: Toggles the selected forum's anonymous posting settings between allowed and not allowed. See Figure 3 and 4 below for more information.
• Locked: Allows you to lock a forum. If a forum is locked, there can be no more postings to that forum. Once the forum is unlocked, postings can resume.

Adding a new Forum

Enter a name for the new forum in the Title text-entry box (Figure 3). A new forum is public, by default, and no anonymous postings are allowed. Select the check box next to Private to create a private forum. Select the check box next to Anonymous to allow for anonymous postings. Press Continue to complete the operation or Cancel to abort it.

Anonymous Postings

Anonymous postings allow students to post their messages anonymously. You may also change an existing forum's anonymous setting by clicking on the forum's option button and clicking Anonymous in the Toggle row on the Forum Management toolbar (see Figure 4).

Figure 4   Forum Management window

Note: Although a forum may be set to allow for anonymous postings, a student must select the Post Anonymously check box when composing a new message (see Figure 5). This check box only appears when you are posting in an anonymous forum. For more information on posting messages, click on Sending Messages.

[ Top ] [ Help Index ]