Ed Discussion is a discussion platform that can enable both asynchronous and synchronous online discussion in a course. Example uses include serving as a forum where students (and teaching staff) ask and answer one another's questions, as a place for real-time discussions while students work on projects, or as a place for back-channel discussion. Ed Discussion is feature-rich and flexible: It allows instructors to organize threads by customizable categories and subcategories; it supports anonymous posting by students and private posts among instructors and TAs, and it supports LaTex and even runnable computer code.

Enable Ed Discussion in Canvas (Instructor Only)

Enabling Ed Discussion in Canvas allows the instructor to create an Ed Discussion instance that is associated with their Canvas course. Once enabled, both the instructor and students can access Ed Discussion by clicking Ed Discussion in the course navigation menu.

To enable Ed Discussion:

1. From the course navigation menu, select Settings.
2. Select the Navigation tab.
3. This tab will display two lists: Items that are visible in course navigation (top) and items that are hidden (bottom). Locate Ed Discussion on the page, then select the vertical ellipsis option. Select enable or drag and drop the item to the top list.
4. Select the Save button at the bottom of the page to save the updated settings.

Set up Ed Discussion for Your Course (Instructor Only)

Select Ed Discussion that now appears in the course navigation menu. By default, you will be directed to the Admin page for your course that contains three subpages: General, Discussion, and Advanced.

1. Sync your class roster and activate Ed Discussion for your students:  
   
   1. Select the General tab.
   2. Scroll down to the Users section, then select Sync with LMS to import the student roster from your Canvas course (you will need to re-sync the student roster if student enrollment changes).
   3. After your roster is synced, select Activate to give students access to the Ed Discussion course site.
2. Set up categories, which can help keep your course organized according to topics. Select Discussion from the course admin interface. Define categories in the Categories text box: Each line is a separate category. To create a subcategory, create a new line under the parent category and indent it using the TAB key. You can also create sub-subcategories.
   
3. Adjust other discussion settings as needed, including enabling anonymous threads, creating thread templates, and more. See Ed Discussion Tips and Tricks (Instructor) for more information on these settings.
4. Create the first discussion thread. From the Ed Discussion menu, select the Discussion icon to create a welcome announcement. You may wish to include a link to Student Guide to Ed Discussion.
   

Posting new threads

All users can click on the New Thread button to start a new discussion thread. There are three types of threads: Question, Post, and Announcement. A student's post will default to a Question, which solicits answers from course staff or other students. Course staff and students can also start a Post to initiate a share something with the class that doesn't need an answer. Only staff can create Announcements. 

New posts can be assigned to a category. You can choose from the categories you set up previously, or from the the default categories (general, lectures, sections, problem sets, assignments, and social). 

Content Editor

The Content Editor provides tools for formatting text and inserting multimedia, LaTex, and other programming language snippets. In addition, you can directly create formatted text and chemical and mathematical equations by directly typing in Markdown and LaTeX (both $ and $$) syntax. Below is a brief introduction to the content editor:  

1. Format your post
2. Add a link
3. Embed videos, images, and files
4. Include a math equation or code snippet
5. Annotate an image
6. Set the thread privacy
7. Post your thread

Post/Comment Settings

Below the Rich Content Editor is a set of post and comment settings for each thread type during thread creation. Options vary depending on the thread type.

When creating a Question or a Post, instructors can check the Pinned option to keep the new thread at the top of the thread list to increase its visibility. The Private option allows course staff to establish a back-channel for communicating among themselves on the platform. Students will not be able to see posts that are marked private.

When enabled, the Anonymous and Anonymous Comments options for Posts and Announcements enable students to hide their identities from each other. Questions can also be posted anonymously. Note, staff can see the names of students regardless of whether Anonymous or Anonymous Comments are selected (complete anonymity can be enabled in Discussion settings, if desired).

With Posts and Announcements, enabling Megathread allows instructors to consolidate student questions under a specific topic. One way to use Megathread is to ask students to Heart the questions they would like to see answered. The thread can be sorted by the number of hearts each post received, and questions that are answered can be marked as resolved. In this way, the instructor can keep track of which questions have been answered and address the most urgent student needs.

An Announcement is by default viewable by the entire class. To make sure that a new announcement reaches all your students, you can utilize the Email feature to send email notifications about it. (Note that these emails will not include the body of your announcement, but they will direct students to Ed Discussion to read it.) You can adjust the settings for notification emails when someone posts a direct reply to your comment or thread or when there is an activity in a thread that you are watching. See your notification settings for a full list of options.

Replying to and interacting with threads (Heart, Star, and Watch)

Students can Heart the questions and answers they find useful and Star the threads they want to refer to later. The number of Hearts that a post receives is viewable by the entire class, but Star is private to the individual. The Watch tool allows students to manage which notifications they get about the activities in a thread. They can select to switch between three different modes:

1. Not Watching to get notified of direct replies only;
2. Watching to receive notifications about all activities;
3. Ignoring to turn off notifications about this thread.

Pin (Instructor Only)

To direct everyone’s attention to the most important threads and ongoing discussions, instructors can select the Pin button to pin a thread at the top of the thread list.

Endorsing Student Responses (Instructor Only)

To approve a student's answer in response to a Question thread:

1. (If the student submitted as a comment rather than an answer): Select the three-dot Options button.
   
2. Choose Convert to Answer to turn a comment into an answer.
   
3. Then, select the checkmark Accept button to turn it green and mark the question as resolved.
   
4. Select Endorse to give recognition to high-quality answers.
   

Removing Duplicate Threads (Instructor Only)

If a new thread duplicates an existing one:

1. Select the three-dot Options button.
   
2. Choose Mark as Duplicate in the menu.
   
3. Then, in the pop-up window, select the thread it is a duplicate of.
   
4. Select Mark as Duplicate to link this thread to the original one.
   

@Mention (Instructor Only)

Instructors can @mention each other and students so that the person mentioned can be instantly notified and drawn into the discussion. Students cannot @mention course staff or other students.

Search

There are a variety of ways to filter, search, and sort threads with Ed Discussion. You can conduct a quick full-text search by typing keywords into the Search Box, and it will highlight all threads with a match in a new search window. You can sort the search results according to their date or relevance using the drop-down menu, or use the filters and category labels on the right-side menu to narrow down the results. Filters and categories are also integrated into the Ed Discussion course navigation menu on the left. You can get a quick overview of relevant posts using the criteria provided in the drop-down menu of the Filter (the Unresolved filter is particularly useful for instructors and TAs to track and take care of unanswered questions) or by selecting the different Categories.

Further Resources

For further resources on Ed Discussion, visit Ed Help, the official help portal for Ed Discussion and related tools.