Forums

The forum tool allows you to host structured discussions within your course. Learners can post messages, reply to each other, and engage in threaded conversations.

Forum Structure

The forum category list showing categories, forums, and topic counts

Forums in Chamilo are organized in three levels:

1. Forum categories — Top-level groupings (e.g., "General Discussions", "Module 1 Questions")

2. Forums — Individual discussion boards within a category

3. Topics (threads) — Individual discussion topics within a forum, each with a chain of replies

Creating a Forum Category

1. Open the Forums tool from your course homepage

2. Click Add a forum category

3. Enter a Category name and optional description

4. Save

Creating a Forum

You can only add a forum once at least one category exists.

1. Within a category, click Add a forum

2. Fill in the basic details:

   • Title — The name of this discussion board

   • Description — An optional description of the forum's purpose

   • Create in category — The category this forum belongs to

3. Open Advanced settings to configure:

   • Publication date / Closing date — Optional time window during which the forum is open

   • Moderated forum — Require new posts to be approved by a teacher before they become visible

   • Can learners edit their own posts? — Allow or prevent learners from editing posts after submitting

   • Allow users to start new threads — When set to No, learners can only reply to existing threads

   • Default view type — Choose how posts are displayed: Flat, Threaded, or Nested

   • For Group — Attach this forum to a course group

   • Public access / Private access — For group forums, decide whether any course member can read it or only group members

4. Save

If the course visibility is set to "Open to the world", the form also shows an Allow anonymous posts? option. This option is hidden in courses with restricted visibility.

Managing Topics

Learners (and you) can create new topics within a forum. As a teacher, you can:

• Pin a topic (sticky message) — Mark a thread as sticky when you create or edit it so it always appears at the top

• Lock a topic — Prevent further replies

• Edit or delete posts — Moderate the discussion

• Move a topic — Transfer a topic to a different forum

Forum Scoring

When creating a new thread as a teacher, you can enable Grade this thread under Advanced settings. You then set a maximum score, a column header for the gradebook, and a weight in the report. You can also enable Thread scored by peers, which requires each learner to qualify at least two other learners before their own score counts.

Notifications

Each forum and thread has a Notify me toggle that you and your learners can use to subscribe to email notifications about new posts. Notifications are a per-user subscription and are not configured when creating the forum.