A Brief Overview of Discussion Forum Grading

This brief overview is provided as a reminder of how you can earn good grades on the forums.  Refer to the remaining documents in this folder for detailed instructions.

The following guidelines apply to each textbook and Internet Resource discussion forum in the course. (The Reflective Blog forums have different guidelines.)

  • Your initial post should be submitted within 3 days of the module start date.
    • Use the “Create Thread” link for your initial post.  This starts the conversation you will facilitate.
    • Just submit one of these “Create Thread” posts for each forum.
    • In the textbook chapter discussion forums, your initial post is is a discussion question that you will lead the conversation on.
    • In the Internet Resource discussion forum, your initial post is a review you have written and which you will lead the conversation on.
  • After you submit your initial post, you must return to the discussion forum often and:
    • respond to at least 2 other students’ initial posts
    • reply to students who have responded to your initial post.
    • The more acceptable replies you submit – up to 10 – the better your forum grade will be.
  • You are to continue your participation in the discussion forum until you have attained the grades you want.  If your goal is to earn an “A+” on a forum, here are the requirements:
    • Submit your initial post within 3 days of the module start date.
    • submit at least 10 reply posts
    • post on at least 10 different days.
    • The more days you participate on – up to 10 – the better your forum grade will be.
    • posts submitted after a forum has ended are not evaluated – no exceptions!
  • The maximum number of posts to a forum that you will receive credit for in any 24 hour period is 3.
    • This means that if you submit 4 or more posts to the same forum during any 24 hour period  you will only get credit for 3 of them.
    • Waiting until the last day or 2 to submit a lot of posts will not help you succeed.
  • A discussion post that violates either of the 2 Cardinal Rules is not acceptable and will not earn any credit towards your forum grade.
    • Cardinal Rule #1: Your post must teach us something relevant and accurate about the topic under discussion.
    • Cardinal Rule #2: Your post title must be a complete sentence which summarizes the main point of your post message.

Discussion forums are the main learning activity in this course.  If you don’t do well on the discussion forums, you will not do well in the course.  And, just like in a face-to-face discussion, it is the back-and-forth interaction that makes the discussion worthwhile.  An online discussion can be just as meaningful as a face-to-face discussion if you engage in this back-and-forth exchange.  The intent of the discussion forum guidelines above is to facilitate meaningful, interactive,discussions.