Many websites contain a forum. It is a classic way of asynchronous communication, that is, it does not require all participants to be online at the same time.
Available forum types:
Standard forum for general use
This is the popularly-used forum format at the Jagiellonian University. It allows both presenters and participants to create new discussion threads and reply.
Standard forum in a blog-like format
This less-commonly-used option functions similarly to the one above, but displays differently.
Q and A Forum
In this type of forum you ask questions (and only you can create a new thread) and the participants answer. The answers of the other students remain invisible until after the student answers the question (and that answer goes through a 30-minute period after which it can no longer be changed). The student can submit many answers to a given question, but the answers of other students are revealed only after the student’s first answer, and after that the student will not be able to edit the first answer.
Each person posts one discussion
Each participant (including you!) can only post one topic in the forum. It helps you to maintain order when you intend to use the forum as a place where each participant is to present their opinion or the effect of their work and discuss. Ultimately, there are as many threads as there are students, so there are no problems with reaching the thread of a given participant.
A single simple discussion
There are no different discussion threads here, and they cannot be set up. There is exactly one specific topic and the opportunity to respond to that topic.
Subscription: how users will be informed about new messages posted on the forum
Forced subscription. Participants are notified of new posts and cannot unsubscribe.
Auto subscription. Participants are initially informed but may unsubscribe.
Subscription disabled. Participants are not informed about new posts.
Note: notifications about new responses appearing on the forums of the platform are sent out at specific time intervals, so information will often appear in email inboxes with a delay of several minutes.
Some additional options
Forums also have, among others the ability to count words in posts and limit the number of posts written by users. The forum can also count whether a given participant has spoken in the discussion the required number of times (set by you).
You can also assess the contribution of specific participants to the discussion and the cumulative grade will be entered in the gradebook. This rating can be calculated by the system according to formulae that you set (such as the average of the posts or the highest grade will be entered in the journal).
