[Discussions] Allow instructor to block/moderate student from discussion board

[jolaine]

I have an instructor who says a student is repeatedly posting inappropriate content in a Discussion Board, even after the instructor has given guidance as to appropriate posting.  Currently, the only way to control this is for the instructor to go in and delete the offending messages, but by that time, the rest of the students may have seen it.

There should be a way for an instructor to set the discussion so that it must be moderated (posts don't appear to the students until the Teacher/TA has approved them) or that a particular student can be blocked from the discussion. 

[mcmack]

The ability for teachers to approve discussion posts from students before displaying them to the whole class is a very needed feature for our K-12 students.  As Canvas continues to expand beyond the college level and further into K-12 schools, the need for this feature increases.  While teachers can work to teach students proper etiquette for posting, it is not serving our young students and their families well to leave this open to chance.  There will always be students that push the limits and make posts they may regret later.  This feature would be greatly appreciated by our teachers.

[10766529]

Discussions: Muting Class Members or Individual Posts

From time to time, an inappropriate comment may make its way into a discussion.  Or, a student will become disruptive to the point that faculty may wish to filter the discussion, but not so serious as to warrant removal from the class.

In such cases, it would be nice to be able to "mute" a student or their posts; the posts can be seen and graded by the instructor but are not seen by classmates.  As instructor, it would be good to be able to accomplish this at both the comment and author level.

I am not talking about on-topic free speech issues but rather, off-topic rants about the University, College, course, classmates/instructors or other individuals... or life generally. 

Presently, I know that I can always delete posts (never done it), but then I also lose the comment for grading purposes.  However, I am unaware of how to mute posts or class members in such a way that I can see/grade their contributions, but other class members cannot view them, so as to minimize disruptive behavior.

Obviously, if the behavior becomes serious enough, one can always go down the path of removing the student from the class...but that is a drastic "last resort" type of action.

[SamanthaRaymond]

I'm presenting this idea as an instructor.

I would like to suggest a function to individually turn off commenting for individual discussion posts. 

For example, some of my students have very heavy political opinions ( I teach English but our textbook is very political). There currently isn't a way for me to moderate the discussion within Canvas, other than deleting posts. 

I don't want to close the whole discussion for everyone, but I don't want a single student to get dumped on by others. If I could lock a post or close it for more comments, it might save my students from feeling like they're being attacked.

[ChristineMILLS]

Can we have an option, in discussions, to have student's posts / replied held awaiting approval?  This would be particularly helpful with our younger students as they are navigating the online world.  Teachers would be able to review students' posts, if they meet the requirements of the discussion thread, the post is released; if not appropriate, this would provide teachers with the opportunity to discuss with the student/s about online posts and the impact words on a screen can have. 

[MONICAWILSON]

We need to be able to mute 1 student from a discussion post. If students are saying inappropriate things teachers should have the capability to mute that student for a while. They can still answer the discussion question that was assigned to them but they can not reply to others.

[Lark]

Please bring moderation to Canvas.

[ccallahan2]

Would like to see the option for the teacher to moderate posts.  Teacher must give permission in order for the individual post to go live for everyone to see. 

[TiffanyStull]

I'm very surprised that there's no "moderated discussion" option in Canvas.  It's a core feature of most discussion tools, and in addition to the use case of making sure students' contributions are respectful before making their posts visible to others, moderation is often used to check the accuracy of student presentations and papers before making them available to other students to review.

The funny thing is that there's a Canvas role permission "Discussions - moderate" which doesn't do what most people would expect it to (i.e., allow the user in that role to approve or reject posts when a discussion is moderated).  It actually means they can edit the discussions.

[Gregory_Putman]

Hi,

New to Canvas, trying to get used to it... keep noticing very basic functions like being able to moderate a discussion forum that I've had in other LMS.  This one has been important to me in the past.  I typically have a discussion board for student discussions that is not moderated, but I monitor and step in if needed to direct conversations away from "what is the answer for this" to more along the lines of "how did you do step 3 because I don't know what..." (online/at-home lab course...).  I also typically have an "Ask the Instructor" discussion that is moderated.  This isn't because of language or anything like that but because some students post questions that really are personal and should be via a private discussion and not posted for the entire class to see while other conversations should be shared with the class.  Moderating helps me communicate more appropriately.  Please consider adding this.

Thanks

[LizHenry]

We have switched from a different LMS that had the discussion moderate option. The moderate feature is vital to how one faculty member runs a two-day simulation with his students. Students work in groups to accomplish tasks based on scenarios. A controller reviews their responses to group discussions before the student groups can share to the entire class discussions. It would be great if the moderate feature is added to discussions.