Tips Showing How to Navigate the Discussion Board

Tips Showing How to Navigate the

Discussion Board

1. How can I collapse or expand conversations on the discussion board so I can easily

see new postings without having to scroll through postings that I have already

read?

At the top of every discussion, you’ll find several helpful tools. Look for

the pair of little arrows in boxes. The up arrow will collapse that

conversation; the down arrow will reopen it.

2. How can I get an email or text message when someone responds to my posting?

Unfortunately, Canvas does NOT have the option to "Subscribe" to an

individual discussion post made by yourself or a classmate.

Canvas does not have anything similar to Facebook where it is called "Activity that

involves you" where you receive a notification when someone tags you in a photo or

comments on your post.

If you post to a discussion and someone replies you will NOT be notified specifically about

someone replying to your reply.

You can Subscribe to the discussion topic, and then you'll be notified by email or text

message to your cell phone every time

anyone posts to the discussion topic. You

can choose how often you get the

notifications - ASAP, daily, weekly, or

none.

How to subscribe to a discussion:

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10471

Click the Subscribe icon.

The Subscribe icon will turn green when you are subscribed.

3. How can I receive a notification if someone replies to my post or submits a new

posting so that I don’t have to check back every day if they delay until Saturday or

Sunday?

If everyone in the class starts his or her replies with both the first and last name of the

person they are addressing, then you could request a daily summary of discussion posts,

and you will only get one email. Look for your name in that email to see if anyone replied to

you.

Set up your Notifications preferences. Click on your Account link at the top of the far-left

navigation links on any Canvas page.

Then click on the Notifications link on your Account page.

This page will give you several options.

At the top of the

Notifications page, find this key to the columns below:

Then scroll down to the Discussions section.

Here you see three ways to receive updates. Click on the icons for your preferences,

keeping in mind the explanations above (immediately, daily, etc.). The green background

indicates your choices.

4. How can I avoid getting lost in all of the discussions and find where I left off and

who I’ve responded to or not?

In discussion replies, the read icon (white dot) indicates the reply has

been read [1]. The unread icon (blue dot) indicates a reply is new or

unread [2].

When you navigate away from the discussion or refresh the page, the

blue dots will change to white dots indicating the replies have been read.

You can tell Canvas not to automatically mark your discussion replies as

read if you prefer to control which replies you haven't viewed manually.

If you select this option, it will apply to the Discussions settings for all of

your courses at UW-Stout.

By default, manually marking posts as read is turned off. You can tell

Canvas not to automatically mark all your posts as read in

your Discussion settings.

NOTE: The post will not change (become read or unread) until you manually change it

again.

5. How can I quickly view what I have personally written/responded to on the

discussion board?

To find posts you have written, or posts written by specific classmates, use the Search

tool at the top of the Discussion posting area.