Course Outline

Offered by Networked Information Services

Instructor: (Contact: www.bu.edu/webcentral/help/)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with the Web.
Almost 2 hours (60 minutes lecture, 40 minutes hands-on exercises, 10-minute break)

Overview (15 minutes)

1. What is a forum?
2. Why use a forum?
3. Why use Forums@BU?
4. Glossary

Hands On: Browsing the forums (5 minutes)

Using the Forums (15 minutes)

1. Posting a New topic
2. Posting a Reply
3. Formatting a post
4. Creating a Poll
5. Posting Announcements & Stickies (moderators only)
6. Using the Spell Checker
7. Private Messaging to other users
8. Searching the forums
9. Getting Help with using the forums

Hands On: Posting to the forums (10 minutes)

Creating a Forum (15 minutes)

1. Overview - Steps to starting a forum
2. Identify purpose - Then choose category
3. Identify users - Then choose public or private forum
4. Request forum

Launching a forum (10 minutes)

1. Post the purpose of your forum with an announcement
2. Create topics (optional)
3. Promote your forum - Linking to it from your home page, notify colleagues, etc.
4. Subforums - for when traffic gets too congested

Hands On: Posting an announcement (10 minutes)

Moderating (15 minutes)

1. Editing Posts
2. Deleting Posts
3. Adding Users - Changing access to viewing private forums only

Hands On: Moderating Posts and adding Users (15 minutes)

See Also

1. RSS