There are two types of discussions. Public and Private. The Public Discussions feature allows users to leave and reply to public comments within:

• Lessons

• Questions

• The Discussions Page
   

Public Discussions

Public Discussions: Learner Experience	Requirements	How To Configure
Discussions made by learners that feature certain "trigger" words will be automatically deleted as soon as they're submitted.  The learner will receive a false success message to dissuade them from re-submitting the offending comment.	N/A	Enabled at the course level via Console. How to Configure:  Console > Learning > Content Packages > Click the name of  Desired Course > Configuration> Public Discussions > Toggle ON/OFF.

 

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Private Discussions

In a typical classroom, a teacher may want to pull students aside to have a private discussion, or they may invite students to group up for private discussions themselves. The Private Discussions feature emulates that experience on our platform, and allows users to set up private discussion groups and invite other users to the group. Private discussions are an add-on feature to our product. To learn more, click here.

 

Private Discussions: Learner Experience	Requirements	How To Configure
When enabled, learners are able to engage with each other in closed forums. These chats are exclusive and only allow certain users to interact. Enabling this feature allows for instructors to create private discussion groups with learners in their institution.  The feature “Private discussions created by students” must be enabled to allow learners to create their own groups.	There is no limit to how many discussions you can create. There is no limit to the number of users you want to include in a private discussion. Private messages can only be used between members of the same Institution. By default, only instructors can create private discussion groups.	Enabled within each course in Tenant Dashboard. Configurable by Tenant Admins from Tenant Dashboard. To toggle setting on/off, follow instructions found here.

 

 

How Learners Start a Public Discussion

Learners can start a public discussion in the 'Discuss' field at the bottom of any Lesson page. This discussion will be linked to the individual lesson and visible to all other learners on that lesson page, and learners can respond to it publicly if they wish.

 

Learners can also also start a public discussion by: 

1. Clicking Discussions

2. Select Public

3. Select the Content that the learner wants to start a discussion on in the drop down menu

4. Type your message in the space provided

5. Optional: Learners can add an image or PDF attachment along with a comment by selecting the Add Images/PDFs button. Learners can only upload the following file types: jpg, jpeg, png, gif and PDF’s.

6. Click Submit to post the message to the discussion board

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Managing Discussions

Discussions are managed in BluePrint from the admin side of your account. You can easily filter all discussions by:

• Discussion content

• Related content type (lesson, question, or flashcard)

• Course

To find discussions:

1. Log into your BenchPrep account

2. Click the menu option on the upper right side

3. Click BluePrint

4. On the left, click Discussions

5. Here you will find all Discussions for all courses

You can also find Discussions for an individual course, by clicking on the course through BluePrint and User Discussions in the left navigation. To view a discussion, click on it's ID or the eye icon on the right-hand side.

 

 

From here, you can:

• View the discussion's content, what content (lesson, question, or flashcard) it's related to, and post a response to it.

• Click on an attachment (if applicable) to download the file. Attachments can be images or PDFs.

• Select Edit to modify the message.

  • To update the message, modify the message's body and select Update Discussion Message.

  • To delete the message, select Delete.
    

NOTE: Currently, Discussion feature is not available within Asset-Based Courses. For BenchPrep Courses, Assets can be embedded within lessons to allow for discussion within the Lesson modules.