[Discussions] Subject Lines for Discussions

[snugent]

I created a similar suggestion about six months ago. I figured I would try again since there is renewed interest in making discussions more user friendly.

Add more distinction between discussion forum posts to distinguish them from each other.

So here is what I think subject lines would do for discussions.

• Instructors and students could at glance see what threads interest them for further viewing.
• Adds distinction between threads
• Makes the discussion topic more organized

[Jeff_F]

I'd have to give this particular suggestion some thought as it has been my experience of more than a decade of online teaching that most students do not edit the default subject line of a discussion reply.  No matter how much it was encouraged, the default title remained.  It was overly redundant and in my opinion decreased the utility.  Also, a subject line would be needed if a tree view were available, but I do not see this type of view in Canvas.

This is not to say I disagree that improvements are warranted to better distinguish threads, but I am not sure this is helpful...

[Renee_Carney]

This idea has moved to the next stage and will be open for voting among the Canvas Community, from Wed. March 2, 2016 - Wed. June 1, 2016.

Check out this doc for additional details about how the voting process works!

[wakimsu]

This is a great idea! I agree with all the comments in the previous version of this idea. It is very difficult to see the distinction between each post in a forum. This makes reading discussions very difficult for me; they just seem to scroll forever.  This get particularly laborious in larger classes. I've tried the collapse button and that works OK, but is quite clunky. This is a much better solution. What I would love to see is if the top of each original post to the discussion had a title that was highlighted somehow (bold, grey background, etc).  Then, all the responses to that post would be nested underneath. You can clearly see when there's a new post because of the title.  Right now there is a small space that is rather difficult for me to see. The title would also clean up the collapsed view because it could be what's visible just under the name.  This would be very helpful!!!

[arovner]

Susan,

Thanks so much for re-posting this!  You saved me the trouble.  We are sharing with our faculty because this is a much requested change and hope to get over 100 votes.

Best,

Amy

[Laura_Orsetti]

This would be hugely helpful for us!  We came from Angel, where we used the forums heavily and had great interactions on there, with students using proper subject lines more as the default than the exception (we were quite adamant about it with them).  Coming to Canvas - the discussions were greatly lacking in functions compared to what we had before (probably one of the few things we actually liked better in Angel), and this has been an ongoing issue for us.  I really hope it moves forward.  I have many more wishes for the discussions, but this is one step in the direction we'd like to see.

[nicole_lassiter]

Vote up! This is an important organizational detail for both faculty and students to stay on top of discussions, and not miss important posts.

Nicole

[emma_bagg]

This would be helpful also when creating a discussion where the instructor wants to have sub-questions.

[tromblcm]

Yes, we need this!

[mintzjl]

Very helpful for students searching for responses to questions they may have that have already been answered!

[cwruck]

Hey folks,

This isn't something we're going to be able to do in the near future. We understand the convenience that this could provide, but it's outside of the scope of what we can reasonably accomplish at the moment.