The purpose of the threaded discussions available
for students enrolled in this course are to facilitate sharing of
thoughts, ideas, resources,
and information related to EDF 6287.
To begin participating in threaded discussions you should first read
the brief description and instructions for posting and replying to threaded
discussions below. Following this brief description you will find links
to each discussion under each week's heading along with the due dates
for posting and replying.
Thread:
A thread is a directory or sequence of "posts." You can also
think of it as a sequence of responses to an initial message posting.
This enables you to follow or join an individual discussion in a newsgroup
from among the many that may be there. A thread is usually shown graphically
as an initial message and successive messages are "hung off" the original message. Each thread must have one original post and can
have an unlimited number of reply posts. Any registered users can contribute
to any thread. There is no restriction on the number of posts in any
given thread.
Post:
A post is any message or comment that has been submitted. There are
two kinds of posts: original posts and reply posts. An original post
begins a new discussion and acts as an anchor for a new "thread." A reply post is submitted in response to an existing post.
Participation:
It's easy to participate in a Threaded Discussion. Threaded Discussions
allow you to share ideas and discuss topics of interest with other class
members. All assignments that require you to post to a threaded discussion
will also require you to read all of your peers' posts and reply to
at least three of them. Although you may complete your participation
in a single visit, it is wise to frequently check back to the thread
to see if others (peers and/or instructor) have replied to your post
with a query for you to answer.
You may link directly to all of the threaded discussion
links by logging into elearning and using the Discussions link at the
top of the course home page. Please remember that participating
in threaded discussions and posting messages to the course listserv
are two different things.
Troubleshooting Tip:
I strongly suggest that you use your word processor to construct your
original post for each threaded discussion. This will allow you to spell
check your assignment as well as save and keep a copy of it in case
technical difficulties arise and your post does not get submitted successfully
the first time.
