Tips and Tricks for Using the Discussion Board
As part of this course, you will have access to an online discussion board where you can post questions and comments on course material and interact with your fellow students and the teaching staff. Here are some tips and tricks for using the discussion board.
1)Finding the discussion board. There are two ways to access the discussion board. On the course website on Edge Edx, you can click on “Discussion” towards the top of the page to go directly to the discussion board. Also, under each video or problem there is a link that says “Show Discussion”. By clicking on this click, you can see the discussion for that particular video or problem.
2)How to post. You can create a new post by clicking on the blue “New Post” button in the upper right hand corner on the discussion board page. Also, under each video or problem, there is a blue “New Post” button. By clicking on “New Post” you can write a post about that particular video or problem.
3)Write a descriptive title. When writing a post, be sure to write a title that describes your question or comment. This will help other students and teaching staff know what you post is about so they can upvote your question (more on that later) or find your question and answer it. Do not title your post “Help” or “Need answer” - titles like “Calculating a risk ratio in a cohort study” or “Computing a prevalence in Stata” are specific, descriptive titles.
4)Upvote! If someone asks a question that you would also like answered, you can “upvote” the question by clicking on the plus sign at the top of the post. This allows other students and the teaching staff to see which questions multiple students want answered.
5)Respond to each other. The discussion board is truly meant to be a discussion. You can respond to other students’ questions and comments by typing in the reply box below a post. When you are finished, click “Submit” so everyone can see your response.
6)Search function. You can search the discussion board to see if other students have the same questions as you do and to find answers to your questions. Within the discussion board, you can click on the magnifying glass at the top of the column on the left-hand side to search by key word. You can also click on “Show all Discussions” which will display a list of all the modules in the course. You can then click on a title to see if anyone has commented on those videos/problems.
7)Follow posts. If there is a post you are very interested in, you can “follow” the post which makes it easy to find again. Just click on the star in the upper right hand corner of the post to follow it. Under “Show all Discussions” you can click on “Posts I’m following” to quickly find the post again.
8)Email digests. When you first enter the discussion board, there is an option to receive updates. If you check the box next to Receive Updates, you will get email digests once a day notifying you about new, unread activity from posts you are following.
9)Do not use Internet Explorer. Sometimes the course website material has trouble loading in Internet Explorer. We advise using another browser, for example Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, to access the course website.