The two major challenges in managing online discussions are maintaining proper behavior and deftly steering discussions to achieve your course outcomes. The former requires stating and enforcing a clear set of rules for proper online conduct, while the latter involves maintaining the interest, motivation and engagement of students in active learning.

The Discussion Board provides a powerful tool for you and your students to actively participate in thoughtful and reflective public conversations. However, they lack of face-to-face visual cues, such as facial expressions and other body language, can lead to misinterpretation of comments and overreactions in a virtual environment. Internet pioneers encountered these very problems in newsgroups and chat rooms and, as consequence, developed a set of guidelines to avoid conflicts and encourage courteous behavior. These are typically referred to as Netiquette and can be used to develop rules of student conduct for your Blackboard online discussions.

In general, your online conduct rules should advise students to:

• treat instructors and classmates with dignity and respect
• avoid "flaming" (i.e., personal attacks and heated or angry exchanges)
• take into consideration everyone's time by making your messages concise and to the point. Sometimes students’ posts are too long too frequent, or not serious enough. Use email to point out your expectations.
• make your responses meaningful (--don't just say "nice comment" but explain why it was a "nice" comment)
• respect your classmates' privacy (--don't make contact outside of class, unless invited)
• forgive other students' mistakes (e.g., don't point out typos, misspellings, and poor grammar in other people's messages)
• never make racist, sexist, and or other derogatory remarks about anyone

The following guidelines provide some tips for handling students who fail to observe your online conduct rules:

• Raucous students pepper the Discussion Board with postings unrelated to the topics. A personal email to the raucous student, giving him or her attention and advice about focusing on the topic usually takes care of this sort of misbehavior
• Dominating students like to control the conversation. Again, a private email to the student, deftly suggesting that the person limits his or her number of posts, allowing fellow classmates to help shape the conversation typically eliminates this type of misconduct.
• Quiet students tend to "lurk" or watch without actively participating in discourse. Requiring a certain level of participation in your assignments is the simplest and most effective way to ensure at least minimal interaction. However, you can also use Blackboard's tracking tools to identify lurkers (--for details on how to use these tools, please refer to the Blackboard 6 Manual in the Resource Links section below). Once identified, contact them via a private email to determine the problem--some students are just naturally shy and need a bit of encouragement and positive feedback to increase their level of participation.
• Belligerent students personally attack their classmates and even you. This kind of misbehavior is often best handled with a duel approach. First, post a message to the Discussion Board addressed to the entire class, reminding them of the rules of online conduct stated in your course policies. This lets other students in the class know you are aware of the problem. Second, send a private email to the belligerent student and be firm about what behavior is acceptable and not acceptable. Cite specific breaches by the student and advise the student to stick with arguing the merits of a particular viewpoint, without commenting on the individual making the argument. If all else fails, you can use Blackboard to "block" the student from participating in specific Forums. However, this should only be used after every other means has been exhausted, including talking with the student on the phone or, if possible, in person.

Note: For instructions on how to develop an online syllabus in Blackboard that incorporates your course policies and rules of conduct for online discussions, click Developing an Online Syllabus.

Resource Links