Bb Discussion Board for Students - Wilmington University

Bb Discussion Board for Students
This tutorial sheet covers the
basic functions found in the
Blackboard Discussion Board.
See the “More Features”
document for information on
how to use more advanced Bb
Discussion Board features.
The Discussion Board feature organizes written dialogue
between students and the instructor. The Discussion Board is
made up of Forums, threads and posts. A Forum is a topic of
conversation, a thread is a series of messages and replies in the
discussion and posts are all the messages that can be counted
from a conversation.
Accessing the Discussion Board
1. Login to your Bb course.
2. Click the Discussion Board link
on the Course Menu. You can
also access the Discussion Board by clicking on link located in the
Communication section on the Course Menu and then selecting
Discussion Board.
Reading a Message
3. Click on the title of the Forum you want to access.
4. The forum will open and all its threads will appear. Click on the name of the thread you wish
to read.
5. You will see all the posts in that thread. Click on the post title you wish to read.
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Bb Discussion Board for Students
6. The post message will appear below the post listing for you to read. Click on other post titles
in the post listing to read additional messages.
Replying To a Thread
7. To reply to the post, click on the post you wish to reply to and click the Reply button (see
image above).
8. Type your message into the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. You can add
formatting to your message using the toolbar at the top of the WYSIWYG editor (see image
on next page).
9. If you want to see what the original post said while composing your message, click Show
Parent Post.
10. You can also add an attachment if appropriate. Click Attach a file, then click Browse, then
navigate to the file you wish to attach, click Open and the file will be ready to attach when
you click Submit. Note: PowerPoints can take a long time to attach, so please be patient.
11. When you are done composing your message, click Submit. Note: Clicking Save will allow
you to save your post as a draft. You can then re-edit your post before final submission.
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Bb Discussion Board for Students
Post a New Thread
12. To create a new Discussion Thread, click the Add Thread from the main discussion thread
listing.
13. A message box will open. Type the Subject of the thread (see image on next page).
14. Optional: You can enter thread text in the Message box. The text may be formatted with the
WYSIWYG editor toolbar.
15. Optional: An Attachment may be added by clicking on the Attach a file link, browsing for the
attachment, selecting and opening the desired file.
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Bb Discussion Board for Students
16. Optional: You can save your new thread for later editing and submission using the Save
button. You will need to come back and submit later if you use this option.
17. Click the Submit button to add the new thread.
For more information . . .
Additional support for Blackboard tools can be found at http://esupport.wilmu.edu, by clicking
on the Help! button in Blackboard, at http://www.wilmu.edu/instructionaltech/index.aspx and
in the User Manual linked from Course Tools in Blackboard.
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