Moderating a discussion board-GC550

Discussion boards are one of the most widely used features of Glow. By default, boards are unmoderated i.e. messages posted by users are displayed immediately and are visible to all members of the Glow Group containing the board.

There may be contexts, however, in which it is useful to be able to moderate a discussion board. For example, a secondary school created a transition Glow Group where P7 pupils from the associated primaries could use a discussion board to post their questions about the transition. This discussion board was configured to allow moderation, so that any highly personal questions could be filtered out and a response given to the pupil individually.

This helpsheet explains how to enable moderation on a discussion board and then goes on to explain how the board operates both for moderators and for other users.

Please note that in order to moderate a discussion board you need Administrator or Web Designer rights to the Glow Group containing the board.
Enabling moderation on a discussion board
1. Go to the Glow Group containing the discussion board you wish to moderate.
2. Click on the underlined link in the title bar of the discussion web part.

3. On the left of the screen, click Modify settings and columns.
4. Click Change general settings.
5. To activate moderation, go to the ‘Content Approval’ section and click Yes.
6. Click OK at the bottom of the page to save the change.
7. Click the ‘Back to’ link at the top left of the screen to return to the Glow Group.
8. No changes will be immediately visible on the discussion board, but are noticeable once users post messages.

Posting to the discussion board
1. To post a message, click New Discussion (or Post Reply within an existing discussion). The ‘New Item’ screen will be displayed. The text at the top of this screen indicates that this is now a moderated discussion board.

2. Enter a heading in the ‘Subject’ box, and the full message in the ‘Text’ box. Click Save and Close.
3. Messages posted by users with ‘Administrator’ or ‘Web Designer’ rights will be visible to all members of the Glow Group immediately.
Messages posted by users with ‘Contributor’ or ‘Reader with Discussions’ rights will not be visible until approved. These users can check their own postings, and the status of these messages, at any stage. To do this:
4. Click the link in the title bar of the discussions web part.
5. On the left of the screen, click My submissions.
6. The submitted messages are listed, along with the approval status of each. Click + to expand a message, or click on the title of a message to edit or delete it.
Moderating messages
Messages posted by users with ‘Contributor’ or ‘Reader with Discussions’ rights require approval before they appear publicly. This moderation can be carried out by any user with Administrator or Web Designer rights in the Glow Group.

To approve or reject postings:
1. Click the link in the title bar of the discussions web part.
2. Click Approve/reject Items. Each of the postings is displayed, along with its approval status.

3. Click the title of a message to read the full text. Click Approve/reject Item.
4. Select one of the three options: Approved, Rejected or Pending. If you wish, add a comment to explain your decision. The comment will be visible to the user who submitted the message and to any other moderator, but will not be seen publicly on the discussion board. Click OK.

5. Any message rejected by a moderator remains visible to the user who posted it. If appropriate, the moderator may therefore wish to delete a message, rather than simply rejecting it. To do this, from the ‘Approve/reject Items’ screen, click on the title of the message. Click Delete Message and then click OK to confirm the deletion.
6. Click the ‘Back to’ link to return to the Glow Group. Approved messages will now be visible to all users of the discussion board.

Setting alerts
As moderator of a discussion board, you may wish to receive an alert when new messages have been submitted and are awaiting moderation. To do this:

1. Go to the Glow Group containing the discussion board.
2. Click on the underlined link in the title bar of the discussion web part.
3. On the left of the screen, click Alert me.
4. Check the email address. If no address is shown or you prefer alerts to be sent to a different address, click Change my e-mail address.

5. In the ‘Change Type’ section, decide which changes you wish to be alerted to.
6. In the ‘Alert Frequency’ section, decide how frequently you wish to be notified.
7. Scroll down and click OK to save your changes.
8. Click the ‘Back to’ link in the top left of the screen to return to the Glow Group.
9. Alerts will start immediately.