Ed Discussion-Using Ed Discussion

Welcome!

Ed is a Q&A platform designed to help students and staff communicate efficiently and effectively.

Ed Discussion at a Glance

All your course communication is in one place.
No more emails – questions and answers posted on Ed benefit the whole class.
Keep questions and posts organized under different categories.
Supports equations, figures, multimedia sources, and code.
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Navigating Ed

On the left is a list of all active courses you are a member of. Simply click on the course name to navigate to the course.

Below this, are a list of available categories for your course discussion board. You can filter threads by clicking on a category.

If you cannot see these on your screen, you will need to make your window wider.

In the center is the thread list. Pinned threads appear at the top of the list. The remaining threads are sorted by time, with the most recent threads appearing at the top.

The thread list shows the thread’s type, title, category, author, and the time since the thread was posted. Click on an individual thread in the list to view it.

Threads with a blue dot are unread. These are threads that you have not seen.
Threads with a green tick are questions that have been resolved. This means that the question has already been answered.
Threads with a purple pin have been pinned. Pinned threads are generally reserved for announcements or important information.
Threads with a blue ribbon have been endorsed by course instructors. This is usually done by instructors to distinguish high quality content.
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Creating Threads

You can create a new thread with the New Thread button.

You can then choose if you want to ask a question, create a post, or if you are an instructor, make an announcement. Here are the differences between the types:

QUESTION: Questions should be reserved for queries that have an answer. These can be marked as resolved once a satisfactory answer has been provided.
POST: Posts are for discussion of general topics. For example, a link to interesting content can be shared in a post for discussion.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Announcements are for sharing important messages to all participants in a course. Additionally, there is an option to send an email notification to all users. Only course instructors are able to post announcements.

When creating a thread, make sure to select the right category for your thread. This helps to keep the discussion tidy and makes it easy for everyone to find what they need.

Options

When creating a thread, you can select the following options:

PRIVATE: Only you and the instructors of the course can see this thread. You should use this if the question is personal in nature or contains your work that cannot be shared with other students.
ANONYMOUS: You will appear anonymous to other students in the course. You are not anonymous to your instructors.

Instructors have access to more options:

PINNED: Pin this thread to the top.
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS: Comments on this thread are anonymous.
MEGATHREAD: Creates a megathread where each comment becomes a question that can be individually resolved.

More detailed explanations of these options can be found in the instructor guide.
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Answering Questions

Questions appear in the thread list with a question icon. Anyone can answer questions and each question can have multiple answers. To answer a question, simply enter it into the editor provided at the bottom of the page and click “Post Answer”.

Accepting Answers

An answer is accepted if it is marked with a green tick . To accept an answer, simply click the tick icon. This can be done by an instructor or the user who asked the question. This marks the question as resolved.

Accepted answers automatically appear on top.

Commenting

Comments are different from answers. Comments can be used for posting observations, and replies, or for asking follow-up questions. If a reply to a question is not an answer, then it should be posted as a comment.

To post a comment, click on Comment under the post or question.

Searching

Above the thread list is a search bar. Here you can type in keywords to locate relevant threads. Searching can also be used to quickly and easily locate old threads. The results of a search can be further refined with filtering.

Clicking the Search field above the thread list displays the Search user interface where you can enter a search query and choose various filters such as category and date ranges.

Filtering by Criteria

You can filter threads in the thread list with the Filter button underneath the search box. This allows you to quickly see threads based on a set of criteria.


ALL: Shows all threads. Pinned threads are grouped at the top.
UNREAD: Shows only threads that you have not read: threads with a blue dot .
NEW REPLIES: Shows only threads that have new replies that you have not seen since the last time you viewed the thread.
PENDING: Shows only threads pending approval. This filter is only available to instructors if the New threads require approval setting is enabled.
UNANSWERED: Shows only questions without an answer.
UNRESOLVED: Shows only questions without an accepted answer and megathreads with unresolved comments.
ENDORSED: Shows only endorsed threads.
STARRED: Shows only threads you have starred.
PRIVATE: Shows only private threads.
PUBLIC: Shows only public (i.e. non-private) threads.
STAFF: Shows only threads created by an instructor.
MINE: Shows only threads you have created.; Back to Top

Filtering by Category

The thread list can be filtered by category. This can be done by clicking the categories on the left sidebar.

Click the category in the sidebar to filter threads by category. Click the cross beside the selected category to view threads in all categories again.

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