CTools Online Help Dcoument -- Message Center

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Message Center

The "Message Center" tool is an alternate discussion tool that also provides an optional email function within a CTools site. For the latest CTools release, version 2.4, the Message Center tool has been split into two separate tools, "Forums" for discussion forums, and "Messages" for sending mail to one or more site participants. The Message Center tool is still available in sites that already had it. In this online help under "Using the Tools," you can find three documents: "Message Center" (this help document), "Forum," and "Messages."

Includes

Description
Features and functions
Creating a forum
Creating an topic
Controlling access to discussion forums
Posting and Responding to discussion forum messages
Grading responses in Discussion Forums
Sending and replying to private messages
Searching private messages

Description

The Message Center is a communication tool that instructors or site leaders can use to create an unlimited number of discussion forums for their course or project sites. The Private Messages area allows site participants to communicate using internal course mail. Private messaging between groups is also supported.

Features and functions

Private messages: Individuals and groups can send internal mail to each other. This function can be deactivated. If private messaging is activated, a participant can send private messages to another individual, a select number of individuals, or a select number of groups.

Viewing messages: Unread messages are in bold; viewed messages are permanently marked as read. By default, messages are listed chronologically. Also, users can select Threaded view to display messages in indented threads. The View By Outline option changes the Threaded view to display threads in an outline format.

Composing messages: A WYSIWYG interface allows rich text, plain text, and HTML editing. You can add attachments to any message by linking to files or web links in Resources. By default, the original message is not included in a reply, but a quote option is available that pastes the original text into the message.

Discussion forums: Asynchronous discussion provides an opportunity for your site participants to engage site resources and each other, and allows for the free expression of convergent and divergent ideas. Interactions can be assigned a point value and sent to the Gradebook.

Viewing forums: On your site's Home page (select Home on the site's menubar), participants can see how many unread private and discussion forum messages they have. On the Message Center screen, participants see the number of unread messages and the grand total of messages for each topic. In the forums list, forums and topics are sorted chronologically by default.

Settings: The site owner (or another participant with the appropriate role) can require participants to submit their posts to a topic before they have permission to read the responses of others. Other settings provide control over access rights (i.e., which individuals or groups can see forums and contribute), the ability to hide messages until approved by a moderator (and reject and comment on unapproved messages), and control over permissions for creating forums, topics, messages, and responses.

To complete the procedures in this document, you must be assigned a role having the necessary permissions. To determine your role, follow the directions in Participant roles. To view a list of permissions associated with a given role, see Permissions, roles, and tools. For a basic understanding of roles and permissions, see Permissions and Roles: Overview.

There are no default forums or topics in the discussion forums area of the Message Center tool. No forums will appear in this area until someone with an appropriate role creates them.

Creating a forum

By default, participants (e.g., students) in a course site cannot create forums in Discussion Forums area.

When you create your forum, you'll need to add at least one topic so site members can post messages.

To create a new discussion forum, follow these steps:

1. In your site's menubar, click Message Center. The Message Center screen will open.

2. Next to "Discussion Forums", click New Forum. The Discussion Forum Settings screen will open.

3. In the "Forum Title" field, type your forum's title. This is a required field, and is limited to 75 characters.

4. In the "Short Description" field, you have the option of providing a brief description (limited to 100 characters) that will be displayed along with the title in the Discussion Forums area.

5. In the "Description" field, you may enter an in-depth description of your forum, and provide any associated information or resources.

6. Under "Attachments", you can attach a file from your local computer or from Resources, or specify the URL for a file on the web. For instructions, see Options for adding attachments.

7. To disable forum postings, under "Forum Posting", click the Yes radio button next to "Lock Topic (Disable topic postings)". The No radio button is selected by default, allowing site participants to post messages about your forum topic.

8. Under "Permissions", you can modify permission levels for participant roles. To do so, from the list under "Permissions", select a role for editing by clicking its name. Then, next to "Permission Level:", use the drop-down list to select from several predefined permission levels. Additionally, you can create custom permission levels by clicking to enable or disable the following functions:

* New Forum: Create a new forum. You can modify this option only via Template Settings.
* New Topic: Create a new topic. You can modify this option only via Template Settings or Forum Settings.
* New Response: Create a new response to your topic.
* Response to Response: Send responses to a topic response.
* Change Settings: Change the topic settings.
* Read: Read topic responses.
* Post to Gradebook: Grade responses and add comments. Send grades and comments to Gradebook.
* Mark as Read: Mark messages as read.
* Revise Postings: Use the radio buttons to indicate which postings participants with the permission level can revise (none, their own, or all postings).

9. When you're finished, click one of the following:

* Save Settings & Add Topic: Save your changes and add the topic to your forum. You will need to add a topic so site members can post messages.
* Save Draft: Save your forum as a draft. You'll return to the Message Center screen.
* Cancel: Cancel your changes; you'll return to the Message Center screen.

Creating an topic

When you create your forum, you'll need to add at least one topic so site members can post messages.

To add a topic while you're creating your forum, first finish creating the forum, and then click Save Settings & Add Topic.

To add a topic later (i.e., after you've created and saved your forum), go to the Message Center screen and find your forum's title. To its right, click New Topic.

Either of the above methods takes you to the Topics Settings screen. From there, you can finish adding your topic. Follow these steps:

1. Next to "Topic Title", enter a title in the text box. This is a required field, and is limited to 75 characters.

2. Next to "Short Description", you have the option of providing a brief description (limited to 100 characters) that will display below the title in the Discussion Forums area.

3. Next to "Description", you may enter an in-depth description of your forum, and provide any associated information or resources.

4. To add an attachment, under "Attachments", click Add Attachment. The file selector screen will open.

5. To disable topic postings, under "Topic Postings", click the Yes radio button next to "Lock Topic (Disable topic postings)". The No radio button is selected by default, allowing site participants to post messages about your forum topic.

6. Under "Permissions," you can modify permission levels for participant roles. To do so, from the list under "Permissions", select a role for editing by clicking its name. Then, next to "Permission Level:", use the drop-down list to select from several predefined permission levels. Additionally, you can create custom permission levels by clicking to enable or disable the following functions:

7. When you're finished, click one of the following:

Are you finding what you're looking for? Please send feedback about this online help guide to ctools-doc-comments@umich.edu Thanks! (For questions about using CTools, send email to ctools-support@umich.edu)

Controlling access to discussion forums

In Message Center, you can set permissions to control access to Discussion Forums while you're creating a new forum or topic (see Creating a new forum and topic in Discussion Forums), or when you're editing an existing forum or topic (see Revising or deleting a forum or topic).

Under "Permissions," you can modify permission levels for participant roles. To do so, from the list under "Permissions," select a role for editing by clicking its name. Then, next to "Permission Level:", use the drop-down list to select from several predefined permission levels. Additionally, you can create custom permission levels by clicking to enable or disable the following functions:

Posting and Responding to discussion forum messages

In the Discussion Forums area of the Message Center tool, you can post messages about discussion forum topics, and post responses to the forum messages of other participants.

Posting a new discussion forum message

To compose and post a message about a discussion forum topic, follow these steps:

1. From the Message Center screen, under "Discussion Forums", click the title of the topic for which you'd like to post a message.

2. Click Compose Message. The Compose Discussion Forum Message screen will open.

3. Next to "Title", type the subject (i.e., title) of your message.

4. Under "Message", use the WYSIWYG editor to compose your message.

5. Under "Attachments", you can attach a file from your local computer or from Resources, or specify the URL for a file on the web. For instructions, see Options for adding attachments.

6. When you're finished:

* To post your message, click Post Message.
* To cancel your message without saving it, click Cancel.

Posting a response to a message or topic

Note: Depending on your role within the site, and how the forum creator configured permissions, you may or may not be able to post a response to another participant's message.

To compose and post a response to another participant's message, follow these steps:

1. Under "Discussion Forums", click the title of the desired topic.

2. Find and click the subject of the desired message.

3. Click Reply to Message or Reply to Topic.

4. In the text field next to "Reply Title", give your reply a title.

5. In the text field under "Message", type your reply.

6. Under "Attachments", you can attach a file from your local computer or from Resources, or specify the URL for a file on the web. For instructions, see Options for adding attachments.

7. When you're finished:

* To post your message, click Post Message.
* To cancel your message without saving it, click Cancel.

Grading responses in discussion forums

Note: Before following these directions you must first create an assignment in the Gradebook; for instructions, see Creating/adding, editing, or deleting a Gradebook assignment.

To grade a response in Discussion Forums, follow these steps:

1. In your site's menubar, click Message Center.

2. Under "Discussion Forums", click the title of the desired topic.

3. Find and click the response to grade.

4. Click Grade.

5. Enter a point value for a grade, and then use the drop-down list to select the assignment for which you're posting the grade.

6. To send feedback, next to "Comments", compose a message in the text box, and then click Send Notification. This will send a message, including the grade and your comments, to the student's Private Messages Area.

Note: The comment text box has a maximum limit of 255 characters. If you write a longer comment, the recipient will receive a truncated version.

7. When you're finished, click Submit Grade.

Sending and replying to private messages

Using Private Messages in Message Center, you can send email to other site participants, and reply to messages sent by other participants.

Sending a message

Note: If you don't see the Private Messages area, your site leader may not have activated private messaging in the Message Center settings. On the Settings page, site creators (or those with appropriate roles) have the ability to activate private messages and to auto-forward messages to an email address.

To compose and send a message, follow these steps:

1. In your site's menubar, click Message Center.

2. On the Message Center screen, under "Private Message Area", click Compose Private Message. Or, while viewing the contents of a Private Messages folder, click Compose Message.

Note: If you can't see anything under "Private Message Area", try clicking the triangle next to "Private Message Area" to expand the area. Or, if you see a message that says the Private Message Area is not activated, a site leader will have to activate Private Messages before you can proceed; see Activating Private Messages.

3. Next to "To", use the drop-down list to select the individual(s) or group(s) you want to receive the message. To select multiple participants, use Ctrl-click (in Windows) or Cmd-click (in Mac OS X). You can also choose to send your message to the entire site, or to all users with a particular role (e.g., all instructors or all assistants).

4. Next to "Send", use the radio buttons to choose to send your message either As Private Message or To Recipients' Email Address(es).

Note: If you send your message using the To Recipients' Email Address(es) option, your message will go directly to the recipients' email addresses. Their Received folders in Private Messages will not receive a copy. However, a copy of your message will be saved in your Sent folder in Private Messages.

5. Next to "Subject", type the subject (i.e., title) of your message.

6. Under "Message", use the WYSIWYG editor to compose your message.

7. Under "Attachments", you can attach a file from your local computer or from Resources, or specify the URL for a file on the web. For instructions, see Options for adding attachments.

8. Under "Label", use the drop-down list to change the priority status of your message.

9. When you're finished, click Send to send your message. Or, click Cancel to cancel your message.

Replying to a message

To reply to a message someone sent to you, follow these steps:

1. In your site's menubar, click Message Center.

2. On the Message Center screen, under "Private Message Area", click Received to view the messages you've received.

3. Find and click the message to which you're replying.

4. Click Reply to message.

5. To compose and send your reply, follow steps 3 through 9 above.

Searching private messages

To search Private Messages in Message Center, follow these steps:

1. In your site's menubar, click Message Center.

2. Under "Private Messaging Area", click Private Messages.

3. Click the folder you wish to search.

4. Next to "Search for text:", enter your search terms in the text box, and then click Search.

5. To modify the search parameters, click Advanced Search. Available parameters are:

* Subject: The subject line of the message
* Authored By: Who sent the message
* Body: The body of the message
* Label: The label associated with the message
* Begin/End Date: The date range in which the message was sent

6. To clear a search, click Clear Search.

7. To end an advanced search, click Normal Search.