A Discussion Board, similar to an online Bulletin Board, is a Bb communication tool for posting messages and comments.  Sometimes instructors ask you to read and respond to the thread they started, other times you can add a new thread to the discussion forum. 

Some threads can have attachments added, depending on your instructor's set up and directions.

To Read and Respond to a Thread:

1. Click Discussion Board in the navigation links or the Communication area.
2. Click the Forum Name.
3. Click the Subject Line to open the thread.
4. Click the Reply button after reading the message.
5. Enter your comments in the Message field.
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Submit button.

To Create a New Thread:

1. Click Discussion Board in the navigation links or the Communication area.
2. Click the Forum Name.
3. Click the +Thread button.
4. Enter the Subject and put your text in the Message field.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Submit button.

(When set to allow attachments)

Below the Message area, in part 2 Attachments, click the Attach a file link.

Click the Browse button and navigate to the file you want to add.

Click the Open button to begin the upload process for your file.
Click the Submit button to add your thread to the forum with the attachment included.

The link to the attachment is on the message content as a blue, underlined link.

Pasting Text into the Bb WYSIWYG Text Box Editor

To avoid issues with Copy- or Cut-and-Paste from MS Word into the Bb WYSIWYG text box, use Notepad (Windows) or a Mac plain text editor (e.g., free: Text Wrangler from barebones.com; Plain Text Editor from brothersoft.com or versiontracker.com; or any other plain text editor).

Copy/paste the MS Word text into the plain text editor, then copy that cleaned plain text and paste it into the Bb Text box.

File Names and Extensions

To prevent conflicts and corrupted files, use only alpha-numeric characters and the underscore (_) for file names.

Do NOT use spaces or special characters, only letters, numerals, and the underscore.

Major Caution:  Do NOT put a space at the beginning of a file name.

Use 32 or fewer characters in your file name.

Close the document and quit the application before uploading the file to Bb.

For documents to be opened on another computer, the file extension (such as .doc, .docx, .html, .htm, .pdf), to designate the file type is added when you save your document.  Your computer should add that extension and the period that separates if from the document name.  You will see that extension in the file link on Bb.
* Do not change or remove the extension or the period.

Viewing Options

To view multiple messages on one screen, such as when viewing a very active list, or copying and pasting messages into a word processing document

1. Click the check boxes of the items you want to view
   - or, to view all, click the Select All button below the list, and click Go.
2. Click the Collect button
3. Scroll down the page to read all the messages.