Overview

Learn how to view analytics for your Ed Discussion course, as well as how to configure different aspects of your course, including your thread categories, thread templates, moderation settings and default code snippet languages.

Viewing engagement analytics

Viewing engagement analytics

Thread views

Ed Discussion tracks learner and educator engagement with threads in your course. For example, every thread contains a view count that shows you how many 'TOTAL' times it has been viewed (hover over or select this number to see the number of 'UNIQUE' viewers instead).

Course analytics

There are also far more in-depth analytics available from the 'Analytics' page. This page is split into 'Discussion' and 'Contributor' analytics, each showing different kinds of engagement data for your Ed Discussion course.

The 'Discussion' tab contains course analytics on things such as user participation, thread viewership, thread creation and thread commenting. There's also a section showing the 'Top Contributors' in your course.

The 'Contributors' tab lists participation data for each individual in your course. Selecting a user's name from the list of contributors will allow you to view their engagement over time in graphs and records of everything they have posted in your Ed Discussion course.

Managing your course configuration options

Managing your course configuration options

Educators can manage certain aspects of an Ed Discussion course's configuration from the 'Admin' page. This page has three tabs: 'General', 'Discussion' and 'Advanced'.

This resource will cover the more common actions you can do from the 'Admin' page, but not everything. You generally won't need to make any changes that aren't listed here. If you're unsure about anything, please contact the AU LMS Support Team for advice (before making changes).

Course configuration tips and tricks

Enable Ed Chat for chat channels

Tab: General | Subheading: Additional Features

Ed has an optional, additional chat feature available by enabling 'Chat'. Ed Chat lets you and your learners create private and course-wide chat channels that function similar to Teams and social media messaging apps. You can learn more about this feature from Ed's resources.

Before you enable Ed Chat, make sure to consider whether:

you have enough time to keep track of private messages to you (on top of messages received via email or the Canvas Inbox)
you have enough time to moderate course-wide chat channels (on top of your Ed Discussion threads)
allowing private chats may silo important discussions from other learners.

If you do enable Ed Chat, you can prevent learners from starting new chats with educators and/or other learners under the 'Chat' subheading at the bottom of the 'Discussion' tab.

Sync user enrollments with myLearning

Tab: General | Subheading: Users

When your Ed Discussion course is generated, all users enrolled in the corresponding myLearning course will automatically be provisioned access to the Ed Discussion course. However, enrollment changes from that point forward are not synced. To manually resync enrollments select the 'Sync with LMS' button.

Otherwise, note that new users in a myLearning course may add themselves into the corresponding Ed Discussion course by accessing 'Ed Discussion' from the myLearning course navigation menu.

Allocate learner groups (called 'Tutorials')

Tab: General | Subheading: Users

myLearning learner groups (e.g. tutorial sections or custom project groups) do not sync with Ed Discussion. Ed Discussion does allow you to manually recreate myLearning groups as 'Tutorial' groups, though they require a lot of manual work to set up (even if using the bulk-add feature) and cannot actually be assigned to threads to create group discussions (only to Ed Chat channels). Because of this, Canvas Discussions are recommended for creating group discussions.

You could instead create custom thread categories for each group, though any learner can participate in any thread, regardless of the category assigned to it (i.e. categories cannot be used to create private group discussions).

If you have questions about replicating group discussions in Ed Discussion, or would like to use 'Tutorial' groups for any reason, it is recommended that you contact the AU LMS Support Team for set up support and advice.

Modify thread categories

Tab: Discussion | Subheading: Categories

Every thread needs to be allocated to a category. Categories allow you to organise threads into related topics. It is recommended that you modify the default categories in your Ed Discussion course based on your specific course's needs. For example, you could set up categories for:

each course curriculum module/topic
each assignment
different course activities (e.g. for placements or labs)
social discussions.

You can edit, add or remove thread categories within the 'Categories' text box. Use TAB on your keyboard to create sub-categories beneath other categories. Note Ed Discussion will assign a random colour to each category - you cannot assign colours yourself.

A popup will appear in the bottom-right of the page for you to 'Save' your changes or to signal that they have been automatically applied.

Set templates for new threads

Tab: Discussion | Subheading: Thread Templates

You can create category-based templates that automatically apply to new thread during creation. These templates can be used to ensure learners provide specific bits of information in new posts, to reduce the need for follow-up questions. For example, you might create a template for threads using the 'Assignment' category that prompts learners to specify the assignment they're referring to in their thread.

To set a thread template, select a category (under the 'Thread Templates' header) then create your template using the standard Ed Discussion rich content editor.

A popup will appear in the bottom-right of the page for you to 'Save' your changes or to signal that they have been automatically applied.

Prevent learners from posting threads without approval

Tab: Discussion | Subheading: Moderation

By default, learners can create new discussion threads without approval from course educators. However, if you enable 'New threads require approval', then every new learner thread will require educator approval before being posted.

A popup will appear in the bottom-right of the page for you to 'Save' your changes or to signal that they have been automatically applied.

Modify available coding language(s) for code snippets

Tab: Discussion | Subheading: Code

By default, Ed Discussion allows users to change the language used in code snippets to any coding language. To restrict the available code language(s), input the names of the viable language(s) in the text box under the 'Snippet Languages' header (if multiple languages are allowed, separate them with a comma). When this text box is empty, all code languages will be available.

You can also set a 'Default Snippet Language' and the 'Highlightable Languages' for automatic syntax highlighting.

Adjust how code snippets work.png

A popup will appear in the bottom-right of the page for you to 'Save' your changes or to signal that they have been automatically applied.

Archive a completed Ed Discussion course

Tab: Advanced | Subheading: Archive course

Ed Discussion courses do not automatically archive when their associated myLearning course concluded. Archiving an Ed Discussion course will remove it from your list of active Ed Discussion courses and prevent further participation in it (not that learners are likely to keep participating after teaching has concluded).

To do this, select 'Archive Course'.

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