Discussion Board in Blackboard  

The DB (Discussion Board) is a tool that your instructor may use for the sharing and building of ideas between you and other students. The DB provides a place or “forum” for students to interact with each other. A student can post a comment (called a “thread”), and other students can reply to that comment. The original poster can then view each reply and respond back if he or she chooses, and so on. It is almost like a conversation – except that everyone involved can participate over the Internet. They do not need to be located in the same room, and, unlike a chat room, they do not have to participate all at the same time. The discussion can occur over a predefined period. 

Posting a New Thread to the DB

1. Access your course and click the Communication button (your instructor may also provide a link to the DB from within an Assignments folder). 
2. Click Discussion Board. 
3. Click the name of the DB forum to which you wish to post a message (note that you can see the total number of posts and unread posts for each forum). 
4. Click  Thread to add a new thread. 
5. Type a brief Subject into the subject field. 
6. Type your Message in the message field – include your first and last name in the message field (note that you have lots of word processing options similar to Microsoft Word – it’s always a good idea to use spell check ). 
7. To upload a file to the DB, click Attach a file under number 2 Attachments (only one file can be attached to each DB thread). 
8. Click Submit (be aware that you may not be able to modify your message after submitting depending on the settings your instructor used). 

Reading/Replying to Threads in the DB

1. Access your course and click the Communication button (your instructor may also provide a link to the DB within an Assignments folder). 
2. Click Discussion Board. 
3. Click the name of the DB forum to which you wish to read/post a message. 
4. Click the Subject of the thread. 
5. Scroll down to read the message – to reply to it, click Reply in the lower right side of the screen. 
6. To see the original post again, click Show Original Post. 
7. Follow steps 6 – 8 from Posting a New Thread to the DB to complete your reply.