IVLE - Discussion Forum Facilitates E-learning
The discussion forum is found to be the most popular tool on IVLE - here's why it is an excellent tool in e-learning

• It is a great avenue for both lecturers and students to post questions and seek answers.
• It gives a ‘voice’ and present to students who are shy in class, as they can choose to be anonymous in the forum
• Users can create hyperlinks to support a viewpoint or argument, or as reference materials.
• Users can also upload files, e.g. Word document and PowerPoint files in the forum.
• For students who couldn’t attend the class, or wish to have further discussion on the subject can choose to do so in a discussion forum.
• More importantly, the forum promote interactive peer learning, rather than being spoon-fed by lecturers in a classroom. In this environment, the lecturer’s role is mainly a facilitator.
• The IVLE discussion forum is ‘threaded, meaning every reply to a question is kept-together in sequence.

Other features of IVLE Discussion Forum are:

• Subscription—the subscriber will be notified via email on new postings and replies on a daily basis.
• Date sensitive—the lecturer can choose to impose a time frame, e.g. one week, on the discussion of a certain subject.
• Users can save the entire discussion into their hard drive for future references.

Here are some suggestions to ensure that the discussion forum is successful:

• Inform students of this facility
• Use the subscription feature
• Ensure the forum is active
• Coach students to post questions and other information in short and concise sentences
• Review questions to check relevance
• Grade students according to their participation
• Instruct students to log in to the forum before going to tutorials