How-to Guides:
Create an online discussion group in FrontPage
Discussion groups can be created several ways:
- WEBCT: If you are teaching an online course and already using WebCT,
the WebCT discussion group feature is excellent. Not only does it provide
good message management features (if people post in the wrong place, you can
move messages around or delete them as appropriate), it also has built in
security since participants must login with their existing WebCT userid /
password to participate in the discussion. Help
pages about WebCT Discussion features are available from the TLTC.
- FRONTPAGE: If you are not already using WebCT, Frontpage provides
a handy way to create online discussion pages. These pages can either be public
(open to anyone to post messages) or private, requiring users to log in with
a userid/password. An example of a public discussion web created this way
is available on http://www.educ.ttu.edu/testdiscuss/.
Feel free to respond and post new messages on this test web before creating
your own.
Steps for Creating a Discussion Web in FRONTPAGE
(The info below is from the Frontpage 2000 Help
Menu)
Create a discussion group to set up a forum for site visitors to communicate
with each other. A discussion group allows site visitors to post articles and
reply to them.
The easiest way to create a discussion group is by using the Discussion Web
Wizard. The wizard asks for the features you want to use, then creates a web
and sets up the pages for you. After the web is created, open the pages and
customize them.
If your discussion web is protected, you can register site visitors. The wizard
creates a registration form for you. You will need to open this page, customize
the form as needed, save it to the root web where the discussion group is located,
and then make the page available to visitors.
- On the File menu, point to New, and then click Web.
- On the Web Site tab, click Discussion Web Wizard.
- In Choose a title for your web, type the name of the new web, and then click
OK.
- The Discussion Web Wizard opens. Follow the on-screen directions to create
a discussion group.
- After the wizard has set up your web pages, modify them as necessary. For
example, if your discussion group has categories, open the page for posting
articles and modify the temporary choices the wizard set up for you in the
category drop-down menu.
Tip: To test your discussion group, preview it in your Web browser by clicking
Preview in Browser .
