Setting Up Forums in Moodle

Mrooms3

Click the "Edit mode"

Screenshot of an Oklahoma City Community College online course page for "NAUT 420: Advanced Nautical Nonsense," showing a welcome section with an image of a complex molecule model and an Instructor Introduction starting with "Hello! My name is Taylor Johnson and I will be your instructor..."

Click on the plus.

Screenshot of an Oklahoma City Community College online course page for "NAUT 420: Advanced Nautical Nonsense," showing the **Course Overview** section which states the course covers "all and everything Spongebob related" and the **Instructor Introduction** starting with "Hello! My name is Taylor Johnson and I will be your instructor...".

Click "Activity or resource".

Screenshot of an Oklahoma City Community College online course page for NAUT 420, showing the Course Overview section which states the course covers all Spongebob content, and the Instructor Introduction by Taylor Johnson, with a menu open on the Instructor Introduction section.

Click "Activities".

Click "Forum".

Screenshot of an Oklahoma City Community College online course page for NAUT 420, showing the Course Overview and Instructor Introduction sections, with a contextual menu open on the Instructor Introduction section displaying the options **Activity or resource** and **Subsection**.

Enter the **Forum name** and **Description**. There are several options in the Forum type menu. For a typical forum, **Standard forum for general use** is the most commonly used option.

Screenshot of an Oklahoma City Community College online course page for NAUT 420, showing the process of creating a new **Forum** activity, with arrows pointing to the required **Forum name** field and the **Description** text box, and the **Forum type** dropdown open showing **Standard forum for general use** selected.

Next, choose a **Due date** and, if needed, a **Cut-off date** in the **Availability** section.

Close-up screenshot of the **Availability** section of a Moodle forum setup, showing that the **Due date** is enabled and set for October 10, 2025, at 13:51, and the **Cut-off date** is enabled and set for October 12, 2025, at 13:51, with the '12' circled in blue.

Under Attachments and word count, you can select the size and number of attachments. Also, you can turn on the option to display the word count.

Screenshot of the **Attachments and word count** section of a Moodle forum setup, showing that the maximum attachment size is the **Site upload limit (250 MB)**, the maximum number of attachments is **1**, and **Display word count** is set to **No**.

Subscription and Tracking

The Subscription mode option controls whether students and instructors can choose to receive emails every time a post is made to the forum.

Post threshold for blocking

This can be set to prevent students from posting more than a set number of posts within a set amount of time.

Turnitin Plagiarism Plugin Settings

Whole Forum Grading

In the settings, choose **Whole forum grading** and select the grade Type. You can also choose **Ratings**. Warning: If you choose both **Whole forum grading** and **Ratings**, the gradebook will create two forum activities to accomodate both. The best practice is to choose **Whole forum grading** or **Ratings**.

Next, set the **Maximum grade**, **Grading method**, and **Grade category**.

Screenshot of the **Whole forum grading** section of a Moodle forum setup, showing that the **Grade Type** is set to **Point**, the **Maximum grade** is set to **100**, the **Grading method** is set to **Simple direct grading**, the **Grade category** is set to **Not categorized**, and the **Default setting for "Notify students"** is set to **No**.