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Participating in discussions in Blackboard

Quick guide for Lecturers and Tutors

Discussions allow participants to discuss aspects of the section with other students and staff teaching the section. You can post and reply to messages.

This quick guide explains how to participate in threaded discussions. Blackboard also allows class blogs and journals to be used for discussions. Refer to the How to participate in class blogs quick guide for students to find out how to participate in these types of discussions.

Read a discussion message
Post a discussion message
Edit a posted discussion message
Edit a drafted discussion message

Read a discussion message

Note: A green asterisk next to the Discussions icon on the Course Tools menu indicates new message(s) have been posted since your last session.

  1. Click on Discussions in the Course Tools menu.
  1. If you are presented with a list of topics, click on one of the topics to view the message(s) in that topic.
  2. Under Subject, click on a message within a topic to read it:
  • The original message is listed first, followed by replies to that message. By default, messages in threaded topics are listed in Threaded view. You can change the view to Unthreaded by clicking on the Unthreaded link. They will then be listed in chronological order.
  1. To navigate, click Next Message or Previous Message.
  2. To view all replies to a subject click:
  • The view thread icon to display the complete thread in a new window
  • The expand icon next to the subject to expand the thread and click on the title you wish to read.
  • The collapse icon to return to previous view
  • To view only unread messages, click Unread.
  1. To change the order of messages (e.g. Subject, Author or Date) click on the title of the field you wish to sort by (e.g. Date to view the newest messages at the top of the list).
  2. Within a topic you can do the following:
  • Expand all threads within the topic—in the table heading row, click Expand All
  • Collapse all threads within the topic—in the table heading row click Collapse All.
  1. Click on Paging Preferences (lower right side of the screen) to edit the number of records you can view per page (the default setting is ten).

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Post a discussion message

  1. To post a discussion message, either:
  • click Create Message to compose a message within a topic, or
  • click on Reply to reply to a particular message within a topic.
  1. Enter the Subject of your message.
  2. Enter your Message.
  3. To attach a file(s) to your message, click Add Attachments. The Content Browser window appears.
  • If you have already uploaded a file to your My Files, select the file and click OK.
  • If you need to upload a file, click on My Computer which gives you access to all files on your computer, select a file and click Open. The file will automatically be uploaded into My Files and attached.
  1. Click Preview if you want to preview your message before posting it.
  2. To post the message, click Post.
  3. You will be returned to the topic page.

Note: Limit the size of your uploaded files to 1 MB or less if possible. Do not use the following unrecognisable characters when naming your file if it is to be uploaded to Blackboard: ~!@#$%^&*()+

Tip: Key your message in Word and then paste the text into the discussion. This saves online time and avoids losing the message if session times out while you are composing the message.

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Edit a posted discussion message

Note: You can only edit your own discussion messages.

  1. Go to and click on the message you wish to edit.
  2. Click Edit Message.
  3. You can edit both the subject and message, insert an equation, or remove or add a new attachment.
  4. To preview your changes, click Preview.
  5. To post the message, click Post.
  6. You will be returned to the discussions topic page.

Note: The edited message replaces the original message, but it is not marked as a new message. You can also edit replies to threaded messages.

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Edit a drafted discussion message

  1. Click on the View Drafts button to the right of the screen.
  2. Under Name, click on the message you wish to edit and make your changes.
  3. Click on Preview to preview your message before posting it.
  4. To save the message again as a draft, click Save.
  5. To post the message, click Post Now.
  6. You will be returned to the discussions topic page.