discussion grading

Discussions have morphed from a course add-on to a major component of the course communication. Some discussion topics are "assignments" posted to the discussions so there is more visibility for your work and an opportunity for class discussion about important topics that are highlighted in your work.

There are multiple discussion topics within the Discussion forum for each module in the course. Your discussion participation grade for the week is the sum of the individual topic posting grades.
Each week, there are points for the quantity and quality of your posts. If you have participated in all the discussions as outlined in the Assignments, and your posts are on-time, thoughtful, and expressed in college level writing, your discussion participation grade for the week will be recorded as the maximum for the week's discussion participation.

As there are several ways to gain and deduct points, your total may be greater than the maximum, but you can't get more than the maximum. You will not get full points for any of the following reasons.

• You do not include all the required elements
• There are significant writing problems
• The submissions are late

There are usually more points possible than the maximum recorded. This means that you could get full points, even though you missed some points in one or more of the discussion topics. And some posts are not graded, so even if you post in every topic, you may not get maximum points.

• For example - if there are 4 topics in the forum and the total for the forum is 10, each discussion topic maximum may be 1-5 depending on the amount of work. If you contribute to all the topics you might have 3/10, 2/10, 4/10, and 3/10, the sum is 12 but your grade total for the forum will be 10/10 - the maximum.

This is a pretty general overview, so if you have specific questions about a discussion grade, please ask.