TalentLMS lets you and your users communicate with each other through discussions, a forum-like communication tool.
You can access all of your discussions and create new ones at any time when logged in as an Instructor (1), by clicking on the Discussions icon (2) from the toolbar on the right side of your screen, next to your profile image.
Discussions are enabled for all users by default. More specifically:
- SuperAdmins, Administrators, and Instructors can create new discussions from their Instructor role.
- Learners can create new discussions if the respective permission is enabled for their user type (read below).
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Note: When the Discussions > Moderate permission (1) is disabled from the Instructor tree (2) under a user type, users with this user type can moderate their own posts within 2 hours of the posts’ creation. Learners can also edit their own posts within 2 hours of creating them. |
| Note: Branches have separate branch-specific discussion forums nested under the branch URL. Topics posted from within a branch are only visible to users who sign in through the branch URL. To access discussions posted on the main portal, users have to log in through the main URL (if they are allowed to). |
To open a new discussion, follow these steps:
1. Sign in to your TalentLMS account as an Instructor (1).
2. From the Quick actions widget, click Add discussion (2).
| Note: Alternatively, go to Discussions and click Add discussion. |
3. On the New discussion page, select an audience for your new topic (3). Choose among the following options:
- Everybody can see this topic (i.e., everyone that logs in through the same URL, main or branch)
- Only specific users can see this topic (i.e., users associated with a course or a group)
- This is a private topic (i.e., only you can see this topic)
4. In the Subject field, type a title (4) about the topic of your discussion.
5. In the Message text area, type a description (5) to prompt discussion.
6. If necessary, upload an external file to attach to your message (6). Users who reply to the topic can also add attachments. The maximum file size for attachments is 20MB.
7. Click Post to publish your new discussion topic (7).
You will be redirected to the Discussions page (1), where you’ll see all of your discussion topics.
On this page, you can sort discussions by title(alphabetically), creation date, latest activity or engagement (2).
A label will appear next to the discussion topic (3) and show the chosen audience of that discussion if specified (i.e. the name of the group or course you’ve selected for your discussion topic). The label is only visible to Instructor roles.
Click the Subscribe icon (4) next to your discussion topic to be notified each time a comment is made by other users on that topic. To unsubscribe, click the same button again.
| Note: When a user is subscribed to a discussion topic, they will receive email notifications when users comment on the discussion. |
How to let Learners initiate discussions
Learners can only start new discussions if a SuperAdmin or an Administrator assigns the relevant permissions to their user type.
Here's how:
1. Sign in to your TalentLMS account as an Administrator and go to Account & Settings > User types (1).
2. Hover over the user type you wish to edit, e.g. Learner-Type, and click Edit (2).
3. On the multi-level nested list, under the Learner tree, click Discussions (3) to expand the relevant list of permissions and make sure the Create option is enabled (4).
4. Click Save to update the user type.