Discussion Forum Feature Comparison
- Matthew Harrington
Feature | Category | Description | Open edX | Moodle | Canvas | Coursera |
Structure | General | How does the forum structure content? | Topic > Post > Response > Comment (no further levels) | Discussion Activity > Discussion topic (post) > Reply > Reply > Reply > ... (nesting deeper) | Discussion > Reply > Reply (no further levels) | Forum > Post > Reply (no further levels) |
Lock | Moderation | Can staff lock posts to stop discussions continuing? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Edit | Moderation | Can staff edit the posts of learners? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Pin | Moderation | Can staff pin content to the top of the forum? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Move | Moderation | Can staff move posts to other topic areas? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Split | Moderation | Can staff split responses into new posts? | No | Yes | Yes | ? |
Flagging | Moderation | Can users report content for moderator review? | Yes | No | No | ? |
Cohorting | Moderation | Can discussions be split between concurrent user groups? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Bans | Moderation | Can users be banned individually without affecting course enrollment? | No | Yes, by defining a role for learners without forum access | No | ? |
Staff Endorsement | Learner Experience | Can staff mark that an answer is particularly high quality? | Yes | No | No | Yes, Highlighting |
Questions | Thread Types | Can users ask questions and mark a response as an accepted answer? | Yes | Yes, if the forum activity is set to Q&A mode | No | No |
Discovery | Learner Experience | How does the forum handle post discovery? | Search, filter by topic | Search, with advanced search "hidden" behind an empty search prompt. Each discussion activity is separate. | Search by title or author | Search, filter by course week |
Like/Dislike | Learner Experience | Can learners vote posts up or down to curate post and response quality? | Like only | No, but does support "rating", where learners can give responses points | Like only | Like only |
Social Media Integration | Learner Experience | Can social media be integrated into the forum experience in any way? | No | No | No | No |
Anonymous Posting | Learner Experience | Can learners post anonymously? | Yes | No | No | ? |
Staff Anonymity Override | Learner Experience | Can staff see who is posting, even when the post is anonymous? | Yes, depending on configuration (true anonymity is also possible) | N/A | N/A | ? |
"Competition mode" | Thread Types | Does the forum support threads where likes or points are hidden until a certain time or level of activity? | No | No | No, but likes can be hidden until grading has been completed | ? |
Emoji reactions | Learner Experience | Can learners react to content using emojis? | No | No | No | No |
Embedded Discussions | General | Can individual threads or topics be embedded into pages of learning content? | Yes | No | No | No |
Grading | General | Can grades be associated directly with the discussion or discussion activity on the course as a whole? | No | Yes, per discussion activity | Yes | |
Auto-moderation | Moderation | Can automation and logic be used to perform typical moderation activities? | No | No | No | Not configurable, but there appears to be some default platform-wide auto moderation |
Post Following | Learner Experience | Can users follow/save important threads to easily retrieve them later? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
User Following | Learner Experience | Can users follow other users to find their new posts? | No | No | No | No |
Notifications | Learner Experience | Can users be notified of new activity in threads/users they are following, and replies to their own posts? | Open edX doesn't do notifications. Digests sort of exist, but not really (see summary emails) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Summary emails | Learner Experience | Can users receive summaries of noteworthy content to nudge them to re-engage with discussions and ensure they don't miss out? | The email digest functionality doesn't appear to be working in recent releases, and wasn't ideal to begin with. | No | Yes | Yes |
Discussion Analytics | Learner Experience | What discussion data is provided to instructors in easily digestible reports and dashboards? | None | Reports on discussion activity by user | None, requires data processing on activity reports | ? |
WYSIWYG editing | Learner Experience | Can posters use a WYSIWYG editor to compose their posts and replies? | Yes. Uses TinyMCE | Yes, but replies only get the good editor by clicking "advanced". Uses TinyMCE | Yes. Uses TinyMCE | Yes, may be custom-built |
Private Replies | Moderation | Can staff reply in such a way that the reply is only visible to the person they are replying to and other staff? | No | Yes | No | ? |
Noteworthy features | General | What is most noteworthy thing about discussions in this platform? | In-content discussions mixed with learning content is something that not many platforms do well, and while not perfect, it's definitely a plus. | Each discussion is actually a discussion activity, with robust grading features. There's no generic "forum" that captures all other forums. | Canvas has fantastic tools for discussion grading and discussion activities for instructor-paced courses. They can be added to learner "to-do" lists. Their discussions are led by the instructor first, rather than being a more typical peer-to-peer experience. Discussions can be used for peer review. | Their discussion activities are very interesting. They provide a page in the course that asks for them to answer a prompt, which is then sent as a reply to a post with the same discussion prompt on it. Once submitted, they can view the replies of other learners in the discussion thread. It also shows how many other learners in the current cohort have submitted answers. |
Permalinks | Learner Experience | Can each post and reply be directly linked to within a thread? | No | Yes | No | No |
"Flooding" protection | Learner Experience | Can learners be prevented from posting in a discussion more than a certain number of times in a short time period? | No | Yes | No | ? |
Auto-Locking | Moderation | Can threads be automatically locked after a given period of inactivity? | No | Yes | No | ? |
Attachments | Learner Experience | Can learners attach files to discussion posts? | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Word Counter | Learner Experience | Can learners see a word count when typing their posts? | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Forum Dates | Learner Experience | Can forum topics have a due date and lock date? | No | Yes | Yes | ? |
Blackout Dates | Learner Experience | Can forum topics be blocked between certain dates? | Yes | No | No | ? |
Accessibility Checker | Learner Experience | Are forum posts checked for accessibility issues and given steps to fix them? | No | No | Yes | No |
Read/Unread Tracking | Learner Experience | Are forum posts marked as read/unread? Can the user manually control what is read/unread? | Yes, cannot manually control read status | Yes, can be controlled manually, can be enabled or disabled per user in Preferences | Yes, can be controlled manually | No |
View Deleted | Moderation | Can staff see replies that were deleted? | No | Only through reconstructing the posts from logs | Yes | ? |
Group Discussions | Learner Experience | Can discussions be split into much smaller discussion groups? | Yes, as Teams | Yes | Yes | ? |
RSS Integration | General | Can forum posts be sent to an RSS feed? | No | Yes | Yes, but functionality is being removed in the future | ? |
Post Before Viewing | Learner Experience | Can viewing the posts of others in a discussion be gated behind making your own post to avoid bias/plagiarism? | No | No | Yes | Yes, this is the default behaviour of discussion prompts |
Drafting | Staff Experience | Can staff draft posts before posting them to the forum? | No | No, but there is a delay before staff posts are visible to allow immediate edits and review | Yes | ? |
UX Rating | General | Out of 10, how does Matthew rate the user experience of discussions out of 10? | 4 | 6 | 7 | 6 |