Journaling with Discussions

The following is how to set up individual groups linked to discussion boards to create a personal journal area for students in your course. 

• From the course Nav Bar select Course Tools and then click on Groups
  
   
• Click the button for New Category
• On the Forum Creation Page:
  • Enter a Name for the Category
  • Enrollment Type: Single user, member specific groups
  • Under Additional Options  select Set up discussion areas
  • Under Forum: either select an already created forum or click the link [New Forum] to create a new forum
  • Select Create new Topic
  • Click Save at the bottom
    
     
• Once you click Save the groups will create in the background and you'll get a message letting you know this could take a few minutes. 
• The next page will prompt you to create a restricted topic. The topic will be the journal area that students can enter in their personal journal entries
  • Create one topic per group
    This is not recommended for graded journals as it will create a topic for each student in the discussion forum. These topics will only be viewable to each individual student and the instructor.
  • Create one topic with threads separated by group
    This is recommended if the journals will be graded. This will create one topic in the discussion forum and students will be able to add threads to the topic but will only be able to view their own individual topics and the instructor will be able to view all topics
  • Example: