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Discussion forums in COMMUNICATION > Forums are designed to discuss asynchronously issues that may be of interest to several users.

In the box Forums you can select one of the following two options:

• Forums of this location (default option)

  The global forums (General and SWAD) and optionally the forums of the current institution, centre, degree and course will be displayed until the current location within the hierarchy of the platform.

• All my forums

  The global forums (General and SWAD) and all the forums of your institutions, centres, degrees and courses, will be displayed hierarchically.

Under the previous selector you can choose one of the forums by clicking on the forum name. You should choose the appropriate forum for the subject to be treated:

• General: subjects out of the scope of other forums
• SWAD: questions about the operation of SWAD software
• Institution: academic or management issues inside the institution
• Centre: centre issues
• Degree: degree issues
• Course: specific issues about the course

The selected forum row is highlighted with the background in light blue.

Next to the name of each forum two numbers are shown related to that forum (if they are not 0):

• Number of total threads.
• Number of threads that have new posts. New posts are understood to be those that are more recent than the most recent post you have seen in that forum. If in a forum there is at least one thread with new posts, that forum is shown in bold.

In the box Forum: <forum name> all the threads of the selected forum are listed grouped in pages, with 10 threads per page. The threads appear ordered from the most recent to the oldest, according to the date of:

• The first post
• The last post (default)

For each of the threads the following columns are shown:

• Status of the thread.
  • If you have written any posts in the thread, your photo is displayed.
  • Icon representing whether or not the thread has unread posts.
  • Icon to remove the thread (red cross) (only if you are administrator or teacher, depending on the forum).
  • Icon to move the thread to another forum (scissors) (only if you are system administrator).
• Subject. Title of the thread written by the author of the first post.
• First post. Date and time of the first thread post. Click on First post to sort the threads according to the date and time of the first post, from the most recent date to the oldest date.
• Last post. Date and time of the last thread post. Click on Last post to sort the threads according to the date and time of the last post, from the most recent date to the oldest date.
• Total number of posts in the thread.
• Number of unread posts by you in the thread.
• Number of writers. Distinct users who have written at least one post in the thread.
• Number of readers. Distinct users who have read at least one post in the thread.

To add a new thread to the selected forum, go to the form New thread located under the thread list of that forum and fill in the subject (thread title) and content of the first post. The content of the post should be plain text, but you can include equations or formulas in LaTeX. To write a mathematical formula inside the text line you must use \(LaTeX \), and to write an equation in LaTeX use $$LaTeX$$ or \[LaTeX\].

As in other options, it is also possible to incorporate multimedia content.

When you finish editing the first post of the new thread, press the Submit button to publish it. The new thread will appear at the top of the thread list of the current forum, and the content of the post will be shown as the only post of the current thread. You can remove it by clicking the icon Remove (red cross) as long as there are no answers (most recent posts in the same thread).

In the box Thread: <thread title> all the posts of the selected thread are listed grouped in pages, with 10 posts per page. Posts are sorted from the oldest to the most recent.

For each of the posts the following information is displayed:

• Header
  • Status of the post. Icon representing whether you had previously read the post or not.
  • Order number of post within thread.
  • Date and time of publication of the post.
  • Subject. Title of post. Normally all posts in a thread have the same title, but users can optionally change the subject when they submit a post. In any case the title of a thread will always be the subject of its first comment.
• Content
  • Icon indicating whether the post is allowed or not. The administrators and teachers, depending on the forum, can ban posts if they violate the basic rules of courtesy of forums (netiquette) by clicking on the icon Ban (eye), or you can unban them by clicking on the icon Unban (striked eye).
  • Author of the comment.
    • Photography.
    • Name and surname.
    • Number of total posts in forums.
  • Full text of the post.

To add a new post to the selected thread, go to the form New post located under the post list of that thread and fill in the subject and content of the post (the subject appears filled out and usually does not have to be changed). The content of the post should be plain text, but you can include equations or formulas in LaTeX. To write a mathematical formula inside the text line you must use \(LaTeX\), and to write an equation in LaTeX use $$LaTeX$$ or \[LaTeX\].

As in other options, it is also possible to incorporate multimedia content.

When you finish editing the post, press the Submit button to publish it. The post will be displayed at the end of the current thread. You can remove it by clicking the icon Remove (red cross) as long as there are no answers (most recent posts in the same thread).