BlackBoard at Highline

How to Lock Discussions (prevent posts)

This is useful if you don't want students to be able to continue adding messages to a discussion forum. You must to both steps below to fully lock a forum.

Disallow "New Threads"

This step prevents students from adding new threads to the discussion.

1. Go to the Discussion Board in your course.
2. Click the "Modify" button for the discussion you wish to lock.
3. Under Forum Settings, about half-way down the page, deselect (remove the check marks from) ALL of the options. (To unlock a forum, click on Allow New Threads, and only those other options which you want to use).
4. Click Submit.

Disallow additions to existing threads

This step prevents students from adding to existing threads.

1. Go to the Discussion Board in your course.
2. Go into the forum you wish to lock.
3. If you don't see a row of buttons across the top (Select All, Unselect, Invert, etc), click on "Show Options" on the right side of the screen.
4. Click "Select All"
5. Click "Lock" (To unlock, click Select All, then Unlock).
6. Click "OK".

You can confirm that the board is locked by logging into Blackboard with your student account. Try and create a new thread, then try and reply to an existing message in that thread.