Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: How would you go about this? = Private forums/messaging
This is a requirement for us on the Concord Consortium project. We haven't done it yet but we did discuss it a bit.
We'd love to work with you if we are doing something similar.
This is a copy of our disucussion:
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Private Discussion Areas:
This is a blackboard feature we need to replicate. Looks like they are using subgroups. This seems very awkward.
My first thought is to create 1 forum per student and give just that student and group admin permissions on it. Other thoughts?
here is the write up from Blackboard.
Each of you has your own Private Conference Area for discussing personal questions and concerns with your facilitator that you'd rather not share with the larger group. From this point on, please use your Private Conference Area instead of emailing your facilitator with personal or private questions. This helps to keep a record of all interactions with you in one place; by keeping information centralized inside the course, questions and issues are less likely to fall through the cracks. (But feel free to email your facilitator if something urgent occurs.)
Please continue to post all questions about assignments, technical issues, or other topics in the appropriate public threads of the Discussion Board, so the rest of the group can benefit from the answers. And, remember, we all learn together; if you have a question, there are probably at least two colleagues who have the same one, so please don't be shy about asking publicly. However, if you do have a question of a more private nature, go ahead and use your Private Conference Area.
Private Conference Areas and Feedback
Each week, you'll receive feedback on how you're doing, including both strengths and suggestions for improvement. This will be based on the rubrics posted in RTT Highlights. Although your facilitator may respond directly to your posted comments in the Discussion Board, you'll always get private feedback, too, in your Private Conference Area.
• A course announcement alerts you when new feedback has been posted. (In general, you should find feedback on the previous week's work by mid-week of the new week.)
At that point, you should do two things in response:
• Hop over to Communication, then look at Group Pages, and click on your Private Conference Area. Open the Discussion Board and, inside, find the Feedbackforum, and read any new documents.
• Feel free to reply, if you have any questions or comments.
Locate Your Private Conference Area
Read all the instructions below before you begin. You may want to open a second browser window, so you can see these instructions in one window while navigating to your Private Conference Area in the other.
1. Click Communication in the navigation bar.
2. Click the link for Group Pages.
3. Locate your Private Group Space, called (Your name) Private Conference Area.
4. Open the Discussion Board within your Private Conference Area. You'll see two main categories: Feedback and Chitchat. Both forums function just like those within the regular Discussion Board where you've been interacting with the entire class.
5. Feel free to ask a question, if you have one, or just say "hi" in Chitchat. You'll need to start a new thread to do this (just use the "Add New Thread" button).
Posted by Caroline Meeks
2: Re: Private Discussion Area In response to 1 06/02/04 12:32 AM [ Reply | Forward ]
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It seems as it is an internal messaging system. Isn't it?
Posted by Ernie Ghiglione
3: Re: Private Discussion Area In response to 1 06/02/04 02:30 AM [ Reply | Forward ]
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Well, the 4th point actually states how this is done in Blackboard, therefore I'd suggest to make use of forums instead the way Caroline describes it, with the note, that each student has *two* forums (one for feedback, one for chitchat).
Actually, better would be one forum and we enable categories with forum postings (which would be more work, but the better way to do this, so a tutor could get a list of all forum postings by his/her students which are "feedback" or "chitchat" on one page).
Posted by Malte Sussdorff
