Hello all
I was wondering if any of you are aware of a way to anonymise discussion board posts/comments after they have been posted? A lecturer has asked if it would be possible to reuse a discussion board in the next academic year, so that the new students are able to see the posts and comments, but are not able to see the names of any of the previous year's students.
Many thanks
Rebecca
I'm sure I've seen something like this but can't remember where...possibly where posts have been made by a cohort of students from a previous academic year, their enrolments have been disabled via Snapshot, and a new cohort enrolled, I'm sure I've seen an option to assign previous posts to a different user, or set them to be anonymous - or did I imagine that...?
Yes, did-enroll all participants in the discussion board. That will anonymize all posts, and they will stay anonymous even if those users are re-enrolled.
Hello Gail
Thanks for your response. Could you talk me through where you see that option? I've taken a look and can't see it anywhere.
LOL, you mean the option to did-enroll? That was a terrible typo. I check my typing but I always see what I meant, not what's there.
Anyway, if you go to users in the control panel section of your course, you click users and not groups. See the image below.
You should see a list of users with their course role, and you may or may not see the ability to remove enrollments and make enrollments. See the image below. If you can see those options, you have the privileges to use them.
We permit instructors to manually enroll and dis-enroll users even tho we have SIS integration, because we expect test users to be enrolled manually to "certify" the validity of the content before the integration is tested. It may be that your course role or system role does not enable the privilege to enroll and disenroll, and you will not see these options. If that is the case you will have to contact your system admin or some other user who has the ability to remove users from a course.
Removing the original participants in the discussion board from the course will convert all posts to anonymous. If the users need to be re-enrolled back into the course, the posts will remain anonymous. There may be a popup window attempting to assign a user to the anonymous posts, you can do with that what you want, but I warn you ALL posts will be assigned the same user if you do that.
Thank you, Gail I'm not sure if this is the ideal option for us - I think we avoid this as much as possible in order to avoid removing work from the grade centre, but it's good to know it is possible.
Hi Rebecca,
If you need to keep the original course information, including enrollments...you can always use course copy into a new course section and do not include enrollments which will give you the option for anonymous discussion posts. I always find that I like to keep enrollments from a course in the event I need to access information from posts, assignments submitted, etc.
Hope this helps,
kristen
Hi Kristen
I've taken a look at doing it this way, but I can't see how you can copy comments, I can just see the option to include starter posts - am I looking in the same place as you?
Many thanks
Rebecca
Rebecca,
Yes, keep the default selection for include starter posts. Once the copy completes, the first time you access the new course you will have the option to set posts as anonymous...
I imagine there may be a need to edit some of the posts/forums but this will only be able to be done once the copy is finished.
Hope this helps,
k
Actually, I think course copy is a rather brilliant option if you don't want to lose the student work. I only mentioned the removal of enrollments because I thought they were former students and it didn't matter. You need to be very careful when doing a course copy on the "return direction" tho. I would rename the tool content area link so it doesn't duplicate the existing one. Something like "Sample Discussion" or whatever.
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LOL, you mean the option to did-enroll? That was a terrible typo. I check my typing but I always see what I meant, not what's there.
Anyway, if you go to users in the control panel section of your course, you click users and not groups. See the image below.
You should see a list of users with their course role, and you may or may not see the ability to remove enrollments and make enrollments. See the image below. If you can see those options, you have the privileges to use them.
We permit instructors to manually enroll and dis-enroll users even tho we have SIS integration, because we expect test users to be enrolled manually to "certify" the validity of the content before the integration is tested. It may be that your course role or system role does not enable the privilege to enroll and disenroll, and you will not see these options. If that is the case you will have to contact your system admin or some other user who has the ability to remove users from a course.
Removing the original participants in the discussion board from the course will convert all posts to anonymous. If the users need to be re-enrolled back into the course, the posts will remain anonymous. There may be a popup window attempting to assign a user to the anonymous posts, you can do with that what you want, but I warn you ALL posts will be assigned the same user if you do that.