Discussions offer a structured way for participants and instructors to communicate about an assignment after submission. Once results have been published—and the option 'Allow asking questions' is enabled in the publication settings—participants can initiate a discussion to ask questions or request clarification. This creates a space for meaningful feedback and dialogue that supports learning. Discussions remain accessible until they are manually closed, giving both students and reviewers the flexibility to engage at their own pace.
Review discussions
Discussions can be started by participants if the setting "Allow asking questions" is enabled when publishing results. Once started, a discussion remains open until it is manually closed. If there are any open discussions, participants awaiting a reply, or unsent drafts, chips will appear in the review overview indicating how many discussions these include.
Navigate through all discussions
Clicking the 'closed discussions' chip will navigate you to the earliest open discussion, if there is any. If there are no open discussions, this will navigate you to the earliest closed discussion.
To review all discussions from the assignments, follow the steps below.
- Navigate to the content_paste_search Review overview of your assignment.
- Click on the chip question_answer x/y closed discussions under Review per result, which indicates the total number of closed discussions for the assignment.
It is also possible to navigate through all discussions of a specific exercise. To do this, follow the steps below.
- Navigate to content_paste_search Review overview of your assignment.
- Click on the chip question_answer x/y closed discussions under the exercise name under Review per exercise, which indicates the total number of closed discussions for that exercise.
You can navigate between discussions in the navigation bar at the bottom of your screen. Click on Previous discussion to go back to the previous discussion, and on Next discussion to go to the next discussion. You can also use left arrow and right arrow on your keyboard to navigate back and forth.
If a discussion is closed, it is added to the closed discussions chip. If you click on this chip, you first navigate through the open discussions. If all discussions are closed, you will be navigated through all closed discussions instead. The chip will also have a green colour to show that all discussions are closed.
Navigate through all open discussions
If there are open discussions, a chip will appear in the review overview indicating how many discussions are awaiting a reply. Clicking the chip takes you directly to the first discussion that has not received a reply, or where the participant's message was the last activity.
To review all unanswered discussions, follow the steps below.
- Navigate to content_paste_search Review overview of your assignment.
- Click on the chip reply Answer x discussions under Review per result, which indicates the number of open discussions.
It is also possible to navigate through all open discussions of a specific exercise. To do this, follow the steps below.
- Navigate to content_paste_search Review overview of your assignment.
- Click on the chip reply Answer x discussions under the exercise name under Review per exercise, which indicates the number of open discussions for that exercise.
You can navigate between open discussions in the navigation bar at the bottom of your screen. Click on Previous discussion to go back to the previous discussion, and on Next discussion to go to the next discussion. You can also use left arrow and right arrow on your keyboard to navigate back and forth.
View the drafts
When responding to a discussion, it is possible to save your reply as a draft. If there are replies saved as a draft, this will be indicated with a chip. Clicking on this chip opens a side pannel that allows you to send all drafts at once, or navigate to a draft to review and send it. When sending all drafts, this includes the drafts of other employees.
To review all drafts, follow the steps below.
- Navigate to content_paste_search Review overview of your assignment.
- Click on the chip reply_all x drafts under Review per result, which shows all drafts in the assignment.
- A side panel with drafts opens.
It is also possible to see all drafts of discussions of a specific exercise. To do this, follow the steps below.
- Navigate to content_paste_search Review overview of your assignment.
- Click on the chip reply_all x drafts under the exercise name under Review per exercise, which shows all drafts for that exercise.
- A side panel with drafts opens.
The side panel shows the discussions of the assignment or specific exercise. Each draft indicates the result and exercise where each discussion is located. It shows the result ID, the position of the result, and which question.
From the side panel, you can send all draft responses directly by clicking the Send all drafts button. This action can be done for the entire assignment or for a specific exercise. These drafts include the drafts of all other employees. The exception to this is when you have a reviewer role, and only certain groups or exercises assigned to you. If you then click on Send all drafts, only the drafts of the exercises and/or participants you are assigned to will be sent.
You can also navigate to a specific discussion by clicking on the draft. This allows you to edit your reply, create another message, or send it directly from there.
Respond to a discussion
When responding to a discussion, you can choose to save your reply as a draft or send it by clicking the dropdown menu.
To respond to a discussion, follow the steps below.
- Navigate to the discussion.
- Type in your reaction in the message field. You can format your discussion by clicking on the text_format icon to open the text editor. It is also possible to attach a file or do an audio recording.
- Once you have typed your message you can choose multiple ways to save, send or communicate your response to the student by clicking on the arrow_drop_down icon to open the dropdown menu. These examples are outlined below:
- Send: This function will send the response directly to the participant. The message cannot be altered later on.
- Save as Draft: This function will allow you to save the response as draft (like a concept e-mail) so the response can be altered after reading and responding to all questions so all participants will be treated equally. All draft messages can be sent later on in one click all together. This also includes draft messages you are not the author of.
- Close and Send: This function immediately closes the discussion upon sending. This prevents the student from responding back to your message and can be useful if you see no added value of them doing so.
- Close and Save as Draft: This function closes the discussion and saves your response as a draft. It is useful if you want to close the discussion to prevent the student from responding but are not ready to send your response yet. Additionally, you can use the "send all drafts" functionality to ensure that all students receive their responses at the same time, without needing to close each discussion individually.
- You can also close a discussion by clicking on the check_circle icon next to the discussion banner. Closing a discussion means that neither the participant nor the instructor can send messages. If necessary, a closed discussion can be reopened by the instructor by clicking the checkmark again.
From here, it is possible to view all discussions (of the exercise). This allows you to see all discussions of the assignment, or all discussions of the exercise you navigated to. These discussions are sorted by Open, Closed and Drafts.
To view all discussions, follow the steps below.
- Click on View all next to the Discussions subheading or press D on your keyboard.
- A side panel opens with the following tabs:
- Open: Shows all open discussions of the assignment or exercise you navigated to. It is specified per open discussion if the participant is awaiting a reply, the reply is in draft, or the reply has been sent.
- Closed: Shows all closed discussions of the assignment or exercise you navigated to.
- Drafts: Shows all responses in draft. From here, it is possible to send all drafts by clicking on Send all drafts at the bottom of the tab. This will send all responses to the relevant students.
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